02-02-2019

saturDay 

DhAkA : February 2, 2019; Magh 20, 1425 BS; Jamadi-ul Awal 26,1440 hijri 

www.thebangladeshtoday.com; www. tbtbangla.com 

Regd.No.DA~2065, Vol.16; No.9; 8 Pages~Tk.8.00 

intErnational 

Pence praises DEA 

help in convict 

Maduro allies 

>Page 3 

sciEncE & tEch 

Why the 

ad-free era 

is over 

>Page 5 

Economy & BusinEss 

A view exchange meeting between 

Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd and 

international corporate consultancy 

>Page 6 

Living some sort of 'captive 

life', bemoans PM 

Non-profitable 

industries to 

be turned into 

profitable: 

Kamal 

DHAKA : State Minister for 

Industries Kamal Ahmed Mojumder 

yesterday said the government has a 

plan to turn non-profitable industries 

into profitable ones by reopening all 

closed government industries and factories. 

He was addressing a rally on the 

premises of Haji Ali Hossain High 

School at Mirpur-13 here. 

Dhaka City Corporation's ward number 

four unit of Awami League organised 

the rally. 

Kamal, a lawmaker from Awami 

League lawmaker for Dhaka-15 constituency, 

said the countrymen extended 

their unequivocal support to Awami 

League's electoral manifesto by casting 

their votes in favour of the AL candidates 

in the December 30 national election. 

"We have to fulfill the commitments 

made to the people. All development 

initiatives should be implemented in 

due time and no mercy should be 

showed over corruption in any sector 

under the Industries Ministry," he 

added. 

Zohr 

05:24 AM 

01:15 PM 

04:08 PM 

05:48 PM 

07:05 PM 

6:30 5:45 

DHAKA : Prime Minister Sheikh 

Hasina on Friday lamented her 

inability to roam around the Ekushey 

Book Fair freely, saying she is now living 

some sort of a 'captive life', reports 

UNB. 

"When I was not in power, I used to 

come at the book fair and roam 

around freely. But now, I'm living 

some sort of a captive life. I don't have 

the scope to come here. If I want to 

come here it causes problems for others 

due to the security reasons. 

Considering people's sufferings, I've 

to suppress my desire to come here 

but in reality, my heart always lies 

here," she said. 

Sheikh Hasina was addressing a 

programme marking the inauguration 

of the month-long Amar Ekushey 

Grantha Mela-2019 on the Bangla 

Academy premises and at adjoining 

Suhrawardy Udyan in the city. 

The theme of this year's book fair is 

'Bijoy: 1952 to 1971 Ebong 

Naboporjay'. 

The Prime Minister said the book 

fair is not a place for just selling and 

buying books. "We think this book 

fair is the fair of life for the Bangalees," 

she said. 

Putting emphasis on knowing the 

history by the new generation, she 

said the people of the country had 

earned the independence and right to 

speak in their mother tongue through 

huge sacrifices and struggles. 

"The history of Bangalees is the history 

of sacrifice, and all of our achievements 

have been attained through 

that sacrifice," Hasina said. 

She also gives importance to translating 

local and international literature 

books for knowing the world literature 

and letting others to know the 

Bangladeshi one. "To know the world 

literature, it's urgently needed to do 

the transliteration." 

The Prime Minister also said 

although the world is advancing fast 

and books are now very much available 

in digital format, the attraction of 

hard books will never end. "The joy of 

turning book pages is something else. 

It can't be compared with anything 

else." 

She, however, underscored the 

need for establishing a digital library 

for accessing any book from any part 

of the world. 

Two foreign guests-Indian poet 

Shankha Ghosh and Egyptian writer 

and poet Mohsin Al Arishi-graced the 

opening ceremony and spoke as distinguished 

foreign guests. Due to the 

illness and as advised by doctors, the 

speech of Shankha Ghosh was read 

out by Ramendu Majumder. 

State Minister for Cultural Affairs 

KM Khalid attended the opening ceremony 

as a special guest while Bangla 

Academy Director General poet 

Habibullah Siraji delivered the welcome 

speech with its President 

Professor Emeritus Anisuzzaman in 

the chair. 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also 

distributed the Bangla Academy 

Sahitya Puroshkar-2018 at the opening 

ceremony. 

Four writers and researchers won 

the award this time. The award winners 

are Poet Kazi Rosy for poetry, 

Mohit Kamal for literature, Syed 

Mohammad Shahed for essay and 

research and Afsan Chowdhury for 

Another gang-rape accused found 

murdered in Jhalakathi 

JHALAKATHI : An accused in a gang 

rape case was found murdered at 

Angaria village in Rajapur upazila on 

Friday morning. 

Police recovered the body of Rakib 

Hossain Molla, son of Kamal Hossain of 

Nadmula village in Bhandaria upazila, 

from a brick kiln in the area around 

10am. He had a bullet injury to the right 

side of his chest. 

Rakib was accused in the gang rape of 

a tenth grader madrasa student on 

January 12, reports UNB. 

Officer-in-Charge of Rajapur Police 

Station (Investigation) Md Mainuddin 

said locals found the body and informed 

police. It was later sent to Sadar Hospital 

for an autopsy, he said. 

A handwritten placard found on the 

body read that he was involved with the 

Madrasa student's gang rape. 

Mainuddin said they were in the dark 

about the killer. 

research on Liberation War. The winners 

received a cheque of Tk 2 lakh 

each at the programme. 

Sheikh Hasina also unveiled a book 

titled 'Secret Documents of 

Intelligence Branch on Father of the 

Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh 

Mujibur Rahman' (Volume -2) at the 

opening ceremony. 

Later, Hasina went round different 

stalls at the book fair. 

Seminars will be held at the main 

stage of the fair venue at 4pm every 

day from February 2 to 28 followed 

by cultural events. 

Like the previous years, the venue 

of the fair was extended to nearby 

Suhrawardy Udyan with huge 

changes. 

This year, the land earmarked for 

the fair was expanded to 550,000 

square feet, 37,000 more than the 

previous year. A total of 770 units 

were allocated to 499 organisations 

The authorities allotted a total of 

150 units at the Bangla Academy 

ground to 104 organisatons and 620 

at the Suhrawardy Udyan to 395 

organisations. 

Last year, the authorities allotted a 

total of 719 units - 136 at the Bangla 

Academy ground to 92 organisatons 

and 583 at the Suhrawardy Udyan to 

363 organisations. 

Besides, 24 pavilions have been 

allocated for 24 publishing houses, 

including Bangla Academy. 

The fair will remain open from 3pm 

to 9pm (Sunday to Thursday) while it 

will remain open from 11am to 9pm 

on weekly holidays. On February 21, 

the fair will remain open from 8am to 

8pm. 

The body of the other accused in the 

same case was recovered on January 26 

from a garden at Binapani village in 

Kathalia upazila. Sajal Jomaddar's body 

had three gunshot wounds - one to the 

chest and two to his head. 

A handwritten placard, found with the 

body, said he was the "mastermind" of 

the gang rape. 

Police said Sajal and associates abducted 

a grade X student while she was going 

to her relative's home in Hetalbunia on 

January 12. They took her to a betel leaf 

garden and raped her. A case was filed 

accusing Sajal on January 14. 

Meanwhile, on January 17, police 

recovered the bullet-hit body of Ripon, 

39, another prime accused in a similar 

case of gang rape case, from Amin Model 

Town. Ripon's body also had a similar 

message on a placard tied around his 

neck which read: "I'm the mastermind of 

the gang- rape case." 

In allegation of instigating suicide, police arrested Tanjila haque Mitu, the wife of late Dr Mostofa 

Morshed Akash. On Friday, Tanjila was produced before journalists. 

Photo: Star mail 

On Friday, after inaugurating Amar Ekhushey Book Fair, people visiting the fair ground at Bangla 

Academy. 

Photo: Star Mail 

SSC, equivalent 

exams begin 

today 

DHAKA : This year's Secondary School 

Certificate (SSC) and equivalent examinations 

begin across the country today, 

reports UNB. 

A total of 2,135,333 students, including 

1,070,441 boys and 1,064,892 girls, are 

expected to appear at the examinations 

from 28,682 institutions in 3,497 centres. 

Of them, 1,700,102 will sit for the SSC 

examination under eight general education 

boards while 310,172 for Dakhil 

exam under the Madrasah Education 

Board and 125,059 for vocational exam 

under the Bangladesh Technical 

Education Board. 

The number of total examinees is 

103,434 higher than last year's and the 

number of institutions is 131 up. 

A total of 434 students will sit for the 

examinations from eight overseas centres 

as well. 

The written examinations will continue 

until February 26 while the practical 

examination will be held from February 

27 to March 5. 

Students have to take seats 30 minute 

before a test begins. 

Besides, no one except centre secretary 

will be allowed to carry mobile phone and 

no outsider will be allowed to enter centres. 

Meanwhile, Education Minister Dr 

Dipu Moni on Thursday assured that 

there would be no incident of question 

paper leakage during the public examinations 

this time. 

While briefing reporters on the examinations 

at the secretariat, she also urged 

teachers, students and guardians not to 

pay heed to any rumour. 

Besides, the coaching centres across the 

country will remain closed from January 

27 to February 27 to facilitate the fair 

holding of the SSC and equivalent examinations. 

Quader criticises 

BNP for declining to 

join PM’s tea party 

DHAKA : Awami League general secretary 

Obaidul Quader on Friday said 

BNP's decision not to join the 

Ganobhaban tea party at the invitation 

of the Prime Ministers has exposed the 

party's old negative political attitude, 

reports UNB. 

Speaking at a press conference at 

Awami League president's Dhanmondi 

office, he said the leaders of Jatiya 

Oikyafront can openly discuss various 

political issues joining the programme 

at Ganobhaban on Saturday. 

"Many things can be discussed while 

taking tea as politicians used to talk 

about politics. So, BNP's representatives 

can talk to the Prime Minister at 

the tea party. They can openly tell her if 

they have anything to say," Quader 

said. 

He further said, "But, BNP's decision 

not to respond to the Prime Minister's 

invitation has manifested the party's 

continuation of old negative political 

attitude. It's not good for democracy 

and BNP's existence. BNP is now on 

DHAKA : Members of 

Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) 

intended to attack jail to free their 

chief Jashimuddin Rahmani, 

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) said 

on Friday, reports UNB. 

"They are trying to regroup," 

Mufti Mahmud Khan, director of 

Rab's legal and media wing, told a 

press briefing at Rab Media Centre 

in Kawran Bazar. 

"ABT members are working on 

target killings although they have 

no leader to guide them," he said. 

"Their main goal is to free 

Rahmani from jail. If the legal 

ways fail, then they are ready to 

attack jail to free him." 

Rab-1 arrested four ABT members 

early Friday from different 

parts of the city, said Assistant 

Director of Rab-1 Senior ASP 

Mizanur Rahman. The arrestees 

were involved in a plot to kill some 

renowned personalities and online 

activists. 

Arrested ABT militants told Rab 

that they currently had 92 members 

who are divided in various 

cells controlled by a person identifying 

himself as Aman. "They are 

the edge of a ditch and they'll fall into it 

anytime." 

On Thursday, the Oikyafront steering 

committee decided not to join the tea 

party at Ganobhaban, terming it a 

"mockery". 

Oikyafront spokesman and BNP secretary 

general Mirza Fakhrul Islam 

Alamgir briefed reporters about the 

meeting decision. 

On Friday, Oikyafront sent a letter to 

Ganobhaban explaining the reason 

behind its decision not to join the tea 

party. 

Quader, also the Road Transport and 

Bridges Minister, said BNP and 

Oikyafront MPs-elect should join the 

parliament to play a strong role both in 

parliament and its outside. 

He also warned BNP that it will be 

isolated from the friendly countries if it 

does not join parliament. 

Turning down BNP and Oikyafront's 

demand for reelection, Quader said 

they will have to wait until the 12th preliminary 

election for it. 

Ansarullah planned 

attack on jail to free 

Jashimuddin: Rab 

campaigning through four-five 

Facebook pages at Aman's 

orders," the Rab officer said. 

These groups mainly monitor 

online activists. "One of the militants, 

Shahriar, joined an atheist 

group using a fake name. At one 

stage of monitoring, the militants 

planned to kill one of the [members 

of the atheist group] according 

to ABT's organisational decision," 

Rab said. 

Among the arrestees, Shahriar 

hailing from Dhunat upazila of 

Bogura studied till class seven 

from madrasa. He joined ATB 

after being influenced by Aman 

through Facebook. 

Md Rasel alias Sajedul Islam 

hailing from Fulgachia of Bhola, 

passed SSC in 2013 and took a job 

in a garment factory. He, too, was 

influenced by Aman on Facebook 

and joined ATB. 

Nurul Islam hailing from Bogura 

passed Dakhil examination in 

2010 and later got admitted to 

Bogura Polytechnic in 2015. He 

was radicalised by Shahriar and 

joined ATB. 

Md Abdul Malek, a driver, was

NEWS 

SATURDAY, 

FeBRUARY 2, 2019 

2 

33rd 'Jatiya Kobita Utshab 2019' begins 

DHAKA : The 33rd edition of 'Jatiya 

Kobita Utshab' (national poetry 

festival) started on Friday at the Dhaka 

University's Central Library square, 

reports UNB. 

This year's slogan of the two-day 

festival is 'Bangalir joy kobitar joy' (the 

victory of Bangali is the victory of 

poetry). 

The festival originally began in 1987 

with a view to raising voices through 

poems against dictatorship and 

tyranny. Jatiya Kobita Utshab 2019, 

organised by Jatiya Kobita Parishad, is 

dedicated to the 50-year anniversary of 

mass uprising of 1969 and its martyrs. 

The inauguration took place after 

paying homage to National Poet Kazi 

Nazrul Islam, Shilpacharya Zainul 

Abedin, Patua Kamrul Hasan and the 

martyrs of Language Movement. 

Noted Bangladeshi poet Asad 

Chowdhury opened the festival. In his 

speech, he noted how poems, &zwj;as 

part of literature, have always been an 

inspiration for the Bangali. 

"Jatiya Kobita Parishad, as a 

platform, is against communalism, 

fundamentalism and tyranny. We 

want to declare that the victory of 

Bangali is the victory of poetry," he 

said, adding that a Parliament free of 

war criminals is a great achievement. 

Jatiya Kabira Parishad General 

Secretary Tariq Sujat said Bangladeshi 

poets have always stood for progress. 

He expressed concerns about rules 

followed for national awards 

distribution. 

"The rules and regulations 

formulated during the dictatorship are 

still being followed when these awards 

are distributed. The process of 

selecting the awardees is still 

Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) in Rangpur celebrated the 71st founding anniversary of 

student's organization through colourful programmes on the Town Hall premises on 

Thursday. 

Photo : Star Mail 

23 drug 

peddlers held 

in Khulna 

KHULNA : Police arrested 

106 people, including 23 

drug peddlers, from 

different parts of the district 

from Thursday to Friday 

morning, reports UNB. 

Md Anisur Rahman, 

additional superintendent of 

Khulna Metropolitan Police 

(KMP), said 63 people were 

arrested in regular drives on 

various charges. 

Thirteen of them were 

drug peddlers. Sixty-eight 

grams of marijuana and 

seven yaba pills were seized 

from them, he said. 

On the other hand, 43 

people, including 10 drug 

peddlers, were arrested in 

special drives. 

Police seized 150 grams of 

marijuana, 22 yaba pills, and 

six bottles of phensedyl, said 

Additional Deputy 

Commissioner of KMP 

Sheikh Moniruzzaman 

Mithu. 

63 people held 

in Satkhira 

SATKHIRA : Police arrested 

63 people from different 

parts of the district in a 

special drive from Thursday 

evening to Friday morning, 

reports UNB. 

Sub-inspector Azam Khan 

of the Special Branch of 

Satkhira district police said 

they conducted the drive 

and arrested them on 

various charges. 

questionable; hence I urge the 

government to take necessary steps to 

maintain the honour of these prizes," 

he added. 

Poet Ruby Rahman, in her 

proclamation of the event, said Jatiya 

Kobita Utshab 2019 declares the 

inevitable victory of Bangali. "All the 

spirit of Bangladeshis' struggle for 

freedom centers the Language 

Movement. Every curve of this 

uprising has offerings of poetry," she 

added. 

Festival convener Rabiul Hussain 

hoped that in the coming days, poets 

and their poetry will continue to 

encourage the nation in all movements 

and struggles. 

Jatiya Kobita Parishad President Dr 

Mohammad Samad in his speech 

urged the government to declare 

February 1 as the 'National Poetry Day'. 

He urged all to take oath to prevent 

the rise of anti-liberal forces in the 

country in future. 

This year, poet Habibullah Siraji will 

be honoured for his contribution to 

poetry by Jatiya Kobita Parishad on the 

second day of the festival. 

Famed names of Bangla literature 

including Nirmalendu Gunn, Mahadev 

Saha, Kazi Rozi, Burhanuddin Khan 

Jahangir and many others will grace 

the festival. 

Nineteen foreign poets from 11 

countries including India, Sweden, 

Maldives, Turkey, United Kingdom, 

Sri Lanka, Iraq, Spain, Uruguay, Congo 

and Malaysia will participate in 

sessions alongside Bangladeshi poets. 

The festival will be celebrated with 

many sessions for recitation, seminar, 

discussion and exhibition on poets and 

poetry. Several stalls have been set up 

Islam never endorses 

terrorism, militancy: Khasru 

NETRAKONA : Terming Islam as a 

religion of peace, State Minister for 

Fisheries and Livestock Ashraf Ali Khan 

Khasru said yesterday that Islam never 

endorses terrorism, corruption and 

militancy. 

All the past Awami League governments 

and the present government led by Prime 

Minister Sheikh Hasina took many steps 

for the spread of Islamic education across 

the country. 

Khasru applauded various important 

steps undertaken by Father of the Nation 

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 

and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for 

upholding Islamic spirit and spreading 

Islamic education across the country. 

During the post-independence period 

Bangabandhu allotted a land for building 

Kakrail mosque in the capital city and also 

allotted the land for holding Bishwa Ijtema 

in Tongi area, he said. 

The state minister said Bangabandhu 

also established Islamic Foundation to 

flourish Islamic education in the country. 

He was speaking as chief guest at a 

reception accorded to him by Islamic 

Oikya Jote Netrakona district unit at the 

local public hall here. Chaired by president 

of Islami Oikya Jote Netrakon district unit 

Moulana Delwar Hussain, the function 

was addressed, among others, by mayor of 

Netrakona pourasava Nazrul Islam Khan, 

general secretary of district Red Crescent 

Society Gazi Muzammel Hussain Tuku 

and vice president of Jatiya Party 

Netrakona district unit Ali Osman 

Siddiqui. 

Khasru said that the government of 

Sheikh Hasina was awarded the repute of 

"mother of Koumi education" by the 

Alems and Ulamas of the country for 

giving recognition to the Koumi education 

in the Koumi Madrasas. 

with books on poetry. 

The festival is open for all. It will end 

on Saturday night with Kobitar Gaan 

(songs of poetry). 

Poet Ruby Rahman, in her 

proclamation of the event, said Jatiya 

Kobita Utshab 2019 declares the 

inevitable victory of Bangali. "All the 

spirit of Bangladeshis' struggle for 

freedom centers the Language 

Movement. Every curve of this 

uprising has offerings of poetry," she 

added. Festival convener Rabiul 

Hussain hoped that in the coming 

days, poets and their poetry will 

continue to encourage the nation in all 

movements and struggles. 

Jatiya Kobita Parishad President Dr 

Mohammad Samad in his speech 

urged the government to declare 

February 1 as the 'National Poetry Day'. 

He urged all to take oath to prevent 

the rise of anti-liberal forces in the 

country in future. 

This year, poet Habibullah Siraji will 

be honoured for his contribution to 

poetry by Jatiya Kobita Parishad on the 

second day of the festival. 

Famed names of Bangla literature 

including Nirmalendu Gunn, Mahadev 

Saha, Kazi Rozi, Burhanuddin Khan 

Jahangir and many others will grace 

the festival. 

Nineteen foreign poets from 11 

countries including India, Sweden, 

Maldives, Turkey, United Kingdom, 

Sri Lanka, Iraq, Spain, Uruguay, Congo 

and Malaysia will participate in 

sessions alongside Bangladeshi poets. 

The festival will be celebrated with 

many sessions for recitation, seminar, 

discussion and exhibition on poets and 

poetry. Several stalls have been set up 

with books on poetry. 

Earlier, the state minister attended as 

chief guest the annual sports competition 

of Netrakona Holy Child Kinder Garten 

School on local Muktarpara ground here. 

He distributed prizes among the winners 

of the competition. 

He also attended a rally organized by 

Bangla daily newspaper "Daily Jugantor" 

at Netrkona press club marking the 20th 

founding anniversary of the newspaper. 

Khasru applauded various important 

steps undertaken by Father of the Nation 

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 

and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for 

upholding Islamic spirit and spreading 

Islamic education across the country. 

During the post-independence period 

Bangabandhu allotted a land for building 

Kakrail mosque in the capital city and also 

allotted the land for holding Bishwa Ijtema 

in Tongi area, he said. 

The state minister said Bangabandhu 

also established Islamic Foundation to 

flourish Islamic education in the country. 

He was speaking as chief guest at a 

reception accorded to him by Islamic 

Oikya Jote Netrakona district unit at the 

local public hall here. 

Chaired by president of Islami Oikya 

Jote Netrakon district unit Moulana 

Delwar Hussain, the function was 

addressed, among others, by mayor of 

Netrakona pourasava Nazrul Islam Khan, 

general secretary of district Red Crescent 

Society Gazi Muzammel Hussain Tuku 

and vice president of Jatiya Party 

Netrakona district unit Ali Osman 

Siddiqui. 

Khasru said that the government of 

Sheikh Hasina was awarded the repute of 

"mother of Koumi education" by the 

Alems and Ulamas of the country for 

giving recognition to the Koumi education 

in the Koumi Madrasas. 

Rangpur Fine Arts Academy (RFAA) organised a five-day workshop on watercolor in Rangpur yesterday. 

Photo : Star Mail 

PSTU teacher's 

association polls 

on february 14 

Md. Naeem Hossain, 

PSTU: The polls of 

Patuakhali science and 

technology University 

Teacher's 

Association(PSTUTA) 

would be held on February 

14. The chief election 

commissioner professor Dr. 

Md. Masudur Rahman 

declared the schedule. The 

CEC of PSTUTA election 

said, The last date of 

submission nomination 

paper is February 11 and the 

scrutiny of nomination 

paper will be held on same 

date. The deadline for 

withdrawal of candidature is 

February 12. The EC has 

published the manuscript of 

voter list already. 

Robber beaten by mob 

in Gopalganj dies 

GOPALGANJ : A 

suspected member of an 

inter-district robber gang 

died on Friday from injuries 

sustained during mob 

beating in the district's 

Muksudpur Upazila, reports 

UNB. 

He succumbed to his 

injuries at Muksudpur 

Health Complex around 

noon. Police identified the 

man as Din Islam, 35, son of 

Babul Sheikh of Shelkhola 

village of the upazila. 

Muksudpur Police Station 

Officer-in-Charge Mostafa 

Kamal Pasha said two 

robbers - Din and Bashar 

Fakir - went to one Kamal's 

house for robbery at 

Dignagar village on 

Wednesday night. 

Locals caught them during 

robbery bid and beat them 

up before handing them 

over to police. The men were 

admitted to upazila health 

complex. 

"Din Islam is a member of 

an inter-district robbery 

gang and accused in five 

robbery cases," the OC said. 

Housewife 

'commits suicide' 

in Chattogram 

CHATTOGRAM : A 

housewife apparently killed 

herself following family feud 

at Balurchara area in the 

port city on Friday morning, 

reports UNB. 

The deceased was 

identified as Akhi Akhter, 18, 

wife of Rabiul Awal of the 

area. 

Akhi had an altercation 

with her husband in the 

morning after he had made a 

comment implicating her 

and his younger brother, 

Assistant Sub-Inspector 

Alauddin Talukdar of 

Chittagong Medical College 

police outpost said quoting 

their family members. 

Akhi later tried to take her 

own life by hanging herself 

from an iron rod on the 

building's roof, the police 

officer said. 

Family members took her 

to CMCH but doctors 

pronounced her dead, the 

ASI added. 

Muksudpur Police Station 

Officer-in-Charge Mostafa 

Kamal Pasha said two 

robbers - Din and Bashar 

Fakir - went to one Kamal's 

house for robbery at 

Dignagar village on 

Wednesday night. 

Netherlands' Damen Shipyards 

keen to invest in Bangladesh 

DHAKA : Damen, a very common name in 

global shipping industry, wants to invest in 

Bangladesh in a bigger way, says its top 

executive, reports UNB. 

Chief Executive Officer of Damen 

René Berkvens expressed their 

investment interest to Bangladesh 

Ambassador to the Netherlands Sheikh 

Mohammed Belal during a meeting held in 

The Hague recently. 

Bangladesh's geo-strategic position, 

political stability and economic growth of 

last 10 years are key elements to consider 

Bangladesh as Damen's next investment 

destination, said the Bangladesh Embassy in 

The Hague on Friday. 

Ambassador Belal and Embassy officials 

paid a visit to Damen Shipyard at 

Gorinchem, The Netherlands and have seen 

different models of water going vessels 

available in the yard. 

Damen's investment in Bangladesh would 

open up a new avenue for Bangladesh's 

shipping sector and accelerate economic 

benefit, said the Bangladesh Embassy. 

With regard to investment, Damen would 

look for common basis of understanding and 

long term relation, it said. 

Since the 1970s, Damen is active in 

shipping sector of Bangladesh. Damen has 

been providing dredgers to Bangladesh since 

long. 

This leading company is having significant 

cooperation with BIWTA, Ministry of Water 

Resources, Khulna Shipyard, Chattogram 

Dry Dock Limited (CDDL), Bangladesh 

Navy and Bangladesh Coast-Guard, said the 

Embassy. 

During the meeting, Ambassador Belal 

apprised the CEO of Damen about 

Bangladesh Delta Plan-2100 and how the 

Bangladesh government is taking 

preparations to implement the plan phase by 

phase. He requested Damen to be part of this 

historic plan and approached him to come 

up with a plan of business expansion in 

Bangladesh. 

In response to Ambassador's request, the 

International workshop 

on Thalassemia held 

TBT report: The closing ceremony of a fourday-long 

International Workshop on 

Thalassaemia was held at Bangladesh College of 

Physicians (BCPS) auditorium at Mohakhali in 

the capital recently. 

Under the joint initiative of Non 

Communicable Disease Control (NCDC) 

Program, Health department Mohakhali and 

International Thalassaemia Federation, the 

program was presided over by Additional 

Director General (Planning and Development) of 

Health Department Prof Dr A H M Enayet 

Hossain. 

The program was started by national anthem 

and inaugurated by Dr Nr Mohammad, Line 

director (NCDC), Health department. 

Dr Mustafizur Rahman Deputy Program 

manager (NCDC) in Bangladesh briefed the 

improvement of prevention of Thalassaemia 

disease. Among others foreign guest Professor N 

Dalton Clinical Director, N H foundation, Dr Pal 

Telfer, representative of International 

Thalassaemia Foundation, Meri Petro, N H 

Foundation gave the speech. President of MDC 

Professor Dr Habibulantah was present as the 

special guest in the program. 

CEO promised to visit Bangladesh in April 

2019 to verify the potentials of investment in 

Bangladesh. 

Ambassador Belal assured him all-out 

support to make his visit successful. 

Ambassador Belal also highlighted both 

ongoing and upcoming mega projects in 

Bangladesh and urge them to be part of this 

development journey. 

Damen, a 91-year old family owned 

company with a turnover of 2 billion Euro is 

having substantial presence in Poland, 

Romania, Vietnam, Dubai, China, Sharjah, 

Cape Town. 

Under the umbrella of Damen Shipyards 

group, worldwide they have 52 companies 

(in the Netherlands 24 and international 28) 

which has been creating employment for 

12000 employers. 

They have the capacity to provide all kinds 

of vessels, like- tug boats, offshore vessels, 

high speed craft and ferries, pontoons and 

berges, dredging and specials, defence and 

security vessels and yachts. 

Since the 1970s, Damen is active in 

shipping sector of Bangladesh. Damen has 

been providing dredgers to Bangladesh since 

long. 

This leading company is having significant 

cooperation with BIWTA, Ministry of Water 

Resources, Khulna Shipyard, Chattogram 

Dry Dock Limited (CDDL), Bangladesh 

Navy and Bangladesh Coast-Guard, said the 

Embassy. 

During the meeting, Ambassador Belal 

apprised the CEO of Damen about 

Bangladesh Delta Plan-2100 and how the 

Bangladesh government is taking 

preparations to implement the plan phase by 

phase. 

He requested Damen to be part of this 

historic plan and approached him to come 

up with a plan of business expansion in 

Bangladesh. 

In response to Ambassador's request, the 

CEO promised to visit Bangladesh in April 

2019 to verify the potentials of investment in 

Bangladesh. 

Trader found 

dead in sylhet 

SYLHET : A trader was found 

dead inside his business 

establishment in front of Tajpur 

College beside Dhaka-Sylhet 

highway in Osmaninagar upazila 

on Thursday, reports UNB. 

The deceased was identified as 

Yusuf Ali, 24, owner of 'Mayer 

Doa', a shop of auto-rickshaw 

parts and son of Riasat Ali of 

Golapganj upazila. 

Being informed by local people, 

police recovered the body of 

Yusuf Ali from his shop in the 

morning and sent it to Sylhet 

Osmani Medcial College and 

Hospital morgue, said SM Al 

Mamun, officer-in-charge of 

Osmaninagar Police Station. The 

head, ear and some portion of 

Yusuf's face was found smashed 

as he was hit by a hard object, said 

police. 

However, the motive behind 

the killing could not be known 

yet.

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAy, 

FEBRUARy 2, 2019 

3 

The funeral procession of a woman sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers as a girl during WWII 

concluded Friday near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, where Kim Bok-dong had protested for 

decades against what she called Japanese failure to come to terms with its wartime brutality. 

Photo : AP 

Woman enslaved by Japan’s military 

mourned near protest site 

The funeral procession of a woman sexually 

enslaved by Japanese soldiers as a 

girl during WWII concluded Friday 

near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, 

where Kim Bok-dong had protested for 

decades against what she called Japanese 

failure to come to terms with its 

wartime brutality, reports UNB. 

Hundreds of mourners, many 

dressed in black and holding paper 

cutouts of yellow butterflies that the 92- 

year-old had adopted as a symbol, 

crowded around a bronze statue of a 

girl representing the thousands of 

Asian women experts say the Japanese 

military forced into front-line brothels 

as it pursued colonial ambitions. 

The memorial, which mixed grief 

with simmering anger toward Tokyo, 

was the culmination of an hours-long 

march that wrapped up a five-day commemoration 

of Kim, who had regularly 

led rallies at the site to demand that 

Japan more fully acknowledge the suffering 

of the so-called "comfort 

January was officially 

Australia’s hottest 

month on record 

Australia sweltered through 

its hottest month on record 

in January and the summer 

of extremes continued with 

wildfires razing the droughtparched 

south and flooding 

in expanses of the tropical 

north, reports UNB. 

Australia's Bureau of 

Meteorology confirmed the 

January record on Friday as 

parts of the northern hemisphere 

had record cold. 

Australia's scorching start 

to 2019 - in which the mean 

temperature across the 

country for the first time 

exceeded 30 degrees Celsius 

(86 degrees Fahrenheit) - 

followed Australia's thirdhottest 

year on record. Only 

2005 and 2013 were warmer 

than 2018, which ended 

with the hottest December 

on record. 

Heat-stressed bats 

dropped dead from trees by 

the thousands in Victoria 

state and bitumen roads 

melted in New South Wales 

during heatwaves last 

month. 

New South Wales officials 

say drought-breaking rains 

are needed to improve the 

water quality in a stretch of a 

major river system where 

hundreds of thousands of 

fish died in two mass deaths 

during January linked to 

excessive heat. A South Australia 

state government 

report on Thursday found 

that too much water had 

been drained from the river 

system for farming under a 

management plan that did 

not take into account the 

impact of climate change on 

the river's health. 

The South Australian capital 

Adelaide on Jan. 24 

recorded the hottest day 

ever for a major Australian 

city - a searing 46.6 C (115.9 

F). 

On the same day, the 

South Australian town of 

Port Augusta, population 

15,000, recorded 49.5 C 

(121.1 F) - the highest maximum 

anywhere in Australia 

last month. 

Bureau senior climatologist 

Andrew Watkins 

described January's heat as 

unprecedented. 

women," the euphemism given to the 

women and girls enslaved by the 

Japanese and a term embraced by 

some of the dwindling number of victims 

over "sex slave." 

Japanese leaders have previously 

offered apologies or expressions of 

remorse, but many of the women and 

their supporters want reparations from 

Tokyo and a fuller apology. Of the 239 

Korean women who have come forward 

as victims, only 23 are still alive. 

Kim, who died Monday and had been 

suffering from cancer, had been a 

beloved leader of the protest movement, 

often sitting beside the bronze 

statue at weekly rallies that have been 

held since 1992 on a strip of sidewalk 

across from the site of the embassy. 

Her death has been met with grief 

around South Korea, with President 

Moon Jae-in crediting her relentless 

advocacy for giving South Koreans the 

"braveness to face the truth." 

As the limousine carrying Kim's 

remains slowly rolled up to the statue 

Friday morning, mourners carried 94 

vertical funeral banners that represented 

Kim's age when counted in the traditional 

Korean manner and were 

marked with phrases thanking Kim 

and demanding Japanese reparations 

and remorse. 

Many people cried during the march 

that started at City Hall. Led by an 

activist who shouted into a microphone 

from a truck, the marchers chanted 

anti-Japan slogans such as "Japan formally 

apologize!" and "Japan provide 

formal compensation!" 

"You always looked out for her and 

now grandma (Kim) is in a good 

place," said a tearful Lee Yong-su, 

another former sex slave, as she sat 

beside the statue and stroked its 

cheek and arms. "I feel very sorry and 

sad. We all know that voice that 

would shout (during the rallies). She 

can shout no more and she never 

received a formal apology." 

Pence praises DEA help 

in convict Maduro allies 

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has congratulated 

the Drug Enforcement Administration 

for helping bring drug trafficking convictions 

against several members of 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's 

family and inner circle, reports UNB. 

The Trump administration has imposed 

sanctions on Maduro's socialist regime and it 

is backing the claim to Venezuela's presidency 

by Juan Guaido, who heads the South 

American nation's opposition-controlled 

National Assembly. 

Speaking to several dozen DEA employees, 

Pence said Thursday: "Your investigations 

have targeted the corrupt narco-dictatorship 

of Nicolas Maduro and helped bring drug 

trafficking indictments and convictions 

against several members of Maduro's family 

and inner circle." 

Two nephews of Maduro's wife were found 

guilty in New York of conspiring to smuggle 

cocaine into the U.S. and sentenced in 2016 

to 18 years in prison. 

The United States strongly rejects offers 

from Mexico, Uruguay and the Vatican to 

mediate a dialogue between embattled 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and 

the head of the country's opposition-controlled 

congress, Juan Guaido. 

A senior U.S. administration official explicitly 

mentioned the three in a briefing Thursday 

and added that "we reject any talks of 

any type of efforts that would allow Maduro 

to maintain himself in power." 

The official repeated the U.S. government's 

position that Maduro is no longer the president 

of the country. Canada and many Latin 

American nations also have recognized 

Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, 

arguing that Maduro's re-election last May 

was invalid because his strongest opponents 

were barred from running. 

The U.S. official briefed reporters on the 

condition of not being quoted by name. 

Mexico and Uruguay announced Wednesday 

that they will hold an international conference 

Feb. 7 to discuss the Venezuela crisis. 

Both countries have not recognized Guaido 

as president. 

A senior U.S. administration official explicitly 

mentioned the three in a briefing Thursday 

and added that "we reject any talks of 

any type of efforts that would allow Maduro 

to maintain himself in power." 

The official repeated the U.S. government's 

position that Maduro is no longer the president 

of the country. Canada and many Latin 

American nations also have recognized 

Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, 

arguing that Maduro's re-election last May 

was invalid because his strongest opponents 

were barred from running. 

A U.S. official says the United States is 

ready to deliver humanitarian aid to 

Venezuela whenever and however is decided 

by Juan Guaido, the head of the oppositioncontrolled 

congress who is challenging President 

Nicolas Maduro. 

People chant anti-government slogans in a walkout against President 

Nicolas Maduro, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. 

Venezuelans are exiting their homes and workplaces in a walkout 

organized by the opposition to demand that Maduro leave power. 

Photo : AP 

3 students killed in 

South Africa school 

walkway collapse 

At least three students are 

dead and "scores" are 

trapped in the rubble after a 

walkway collapsed at a 

school outside Johannesburg, 

a South African official 

said Friday, reports UNB. 

Panyaza Lesufi, the head 

of education for Gauteng 

province, posted the toll on 

Twitter shortly after the collapse 

at the Hoerskool 

Driehoek high school in 

Vanderbijlpark. Two boys 

and a girl were killed, Lesufi 

said. "It is painful to see 

those tiny bodies in that 

state," he said. The school 

has been closed. It was not 

immediately clear what 

caused the collapse. Local 

media posted photos of a 

large slab and scattered 

bricks with the scene 

blocked off by emergency 

tape. Emergency services 

provider Netcare911 said at 

least four people may have 

died and at least five people 

were critically injured. 

The national Department 

of Education extended condolences 

to the families of 

the students killed. A statement 

by AfriForum, a civil 

society organization that 

represents the rights of 

Afrikaners, sent out a notice 

urging people to avoid the 

area so as not to interfere 

with the work of emergency 

responders. 

US imposes visa 

restrictions on Ghana 

over deportees 

The United States says it has 

imposed visa restrictions on 

Ghana, saying the West 

African nation is not cooperating 

in taking back its 

deported nationals, reports 

UNB. 

A Department of Homeland 

Security statement says 

Ghana "has denied or unreasonably 

delayed accepting 

their nationals ordered 

removed from the United 

States." 

The statement issued 

Thursday says Secretary of 

State Mike Pompeo has 

ordered consular officials to 

impose visa restrictions on 

some categories of visa 

applicants and "without an 

appropriate response from 

Ghana, the scope of these 

sanctions may be expanded 

to a wider population." 

Iran starts marking 40th anniversary 

of Islamic Revolution 

Iran is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed 

shah, overturned 2,500 years of monarchical rule and brought hard-line Shiite clerics to power, 

reports UNB. 

The anniversary starts every year on Feb. 1 - the day Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 

returned from France after 14 years in exile to become the supreme leader of the Islamic 

Republic of Iran. 

Across the country on Friday, sirens rang out from trains and boats and church bells chimed 

at 9:33 a.m. - the exact time Khomeini's chartered Air France Boeing 747 touched down 40 

years ago at Tehran's International Mehrabad airport. 

The 10-day anniversary festivities, known as the "Ten Days of Dawn," end on Feb. 11, the 

date Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's government collapsed. 

Iran on Friday kicked off days-long celebrations of the 40th anniversary of 

the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah, 

overturned 2,500 years of monarchical rule and brought hard-line Shiite 

clerics to power. 

Photo : AP 

Former South Korean governor 

convicted of sexual abuse 

A South Korean appeals court sentenced 

a former provincial governor to 

3½ years in prison on Friday on 

charges of sexually abusing his secretary, 

in the highest profile conviction 

yet from investigations triggered by the 

country's growing #MeToo movement, 

reports UNB. 

A Seoul High Court official said Ahn 

Hee-jung was found guilty on most 

counts after being accused of molestation, 

sexual assault and abuse of 

authority. The official did not want to 

be named, citing office rules. 

Ahn, 54, had been considered a possible 

presidential candidate, and was a 

runner-up to current President Moon 

Jae-in in the ruling party's presidential 

primary in April 2017. 

But he stepped down as governor of 

South Chungcheong province last 

March amid public anger over allegations 

of sexual abuse raised by his thensecretary, 

Kim Ji-eun. Kim said in a television 

interview that Ahn had raped 

her several times since June 2017 and 

that she couldn't say no because of how 

powerful he was. 

A lower court acquitted Ahn in 

August, citing a lack of evidence proving 

that he abused his authority to force 

his secretary to have sex. 

Ahn, who said the sex was consensual, 

can appeal the conviction to the 

Supreme Court. 

After Friday's verdict was announced, 

Ahn told the judge that "I have nothing 

to say," according to Yonhap news 

agency, and was later escorted in handcuffs 

by court officials to a bus that took 

him to a correction center in southern 

Seoul. 

In a statement released through her 

lawyer, Kim thanked the court for seeing 

"the truth, just the way it is," and 

said she hopes the verdict will give 

strength to other victims of sexual 

abuse who have struggled in their 

attempts to seek accountability. 

Ahn is the first prominent politician 

to be jailed after being accused in the 

country's growing #MeToo movement 

Vatican magazine denounces sexual 

abuse of nuns by priests 

against sexual misconduct, which has 

led to indictments and convictions of 

powerful men in arts, sports and government 

after victims came forward. 

Last week, the Seoul Central District 

Court sentenced former senior prosecutor 

Ahn Tae-geun to two years in 

prison for abusing his authority by 

transferring junior colleague Seo Jihyeon 

to an unfavorable provincial job 

in 2015 after she demanded that he 

The Vatican's women's magazine is denouncing 

the sexual abuse of nuns by priests - and the 

resulting "scandal" of religious sisters having 

abortions or giving birth to children who are 

then not recognized by their fathers, reports 

UNB. 

The February issue of "Women Church 

World," a monthly magazine distributed alongside 

the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore 

Romano, was published Friday. It cited Pope 

Francis' own analysis of abuse by saying clerical 

power was at the root of the problem. It said 

nuns have been silenced for years by fear of 

retaliation against themselves or their orders if 

they report the priests who molested them. 

The publication marks a significant public 

acknowledgment from inside the Vatican of the 

problem that the Holy See has long known 

about but has done next to nothing to address. 

Last year, after The Associated Press and other 

media reported on the scandal, the international 

association of women's religious orders urged 

sisters to report abuse to police and their superiors, 

a significant shattering of the silence that 

has long kept the problem secret. In the article, 

editor Lucetta Scaraffia notes that for centuries 

women in the church have been depicted as 

"dangerous and temptresses," which has complicated 

the acceptance within the Catholic hierarchy 

that they can be victims of unwanted sexual 

advances by priests. "But here Pope Francis' 

analysis about abuse can be of some help: If you 

point to power, to clericalism, the abuse against 

religious sisters takes on another aspect and can 

finally be recognized for what it is: that is an act 

of power in which touch becomes a violation of 

one's personal intimacy," she wrote. The article 

noted that reports written by religious sisters 

were presented to Vatican officials in the 1990s 

about the problem of priests sexually abusing 

nuns in Africa - they were considered "safe" 

partners at the height of the HIV crisis. 

apologize for allegedly groping her at a 

funeral. Seo went public with her allegations 

in January last year. 

South Korea's human rights commission 

plans to interview thousands of 

adult and child athletes about a culture 

of abuse in sports after a wave of female 

athletes, including two-time Olympic 

short-track speed skating champion 

Shim Suk-hee, said they had been 

raped or assaulted by their coaches. 

Australian PM urges caution 

ahead of landmark banking 

misconduct report 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned against any rash response 

to the landmark banking royal commission, reports UNB. 

The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and 

Financial Services Industry delivered its final report to Morrison and Treasurer 

Josh Frydenberg on Friday who will release it to the public after the share market 

closes on Monday. 

Ahead of receiving the document, which is expected to be hundreds of pages 

long, Morrison predicted it would contain "legitimate" criticism of the Australian 

Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential 

Regulation Authority (APRA). 

However, Morrison said he would not be taking drastic action to avoid damaging 

the economy. 

"It will be a question of what suggestions or measures they put on the table but 

I will be very mindful that I want to see the oil that lubricates our financial system 

- which is access to credit - continues to flow, otherwise the consequences would 

be quite significant," he told Fairfax Media on Friday. 

"The easiest way to ensure nobody gets hurt is to lend nobody any money. But if 

nobody gets lent any money then everybody gets hurt. So I think we have to be sensible." 

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne conducted 68 days of public hearings to form the 

report, hearing from 134 witnesses and receiving more than 10,000 submissions. 

He heard evidence of Australia's biggest financial institutions knowingly taking 

money from dead customers and charging hundreds of millions of dollars in fees 

for services they never delivered. 

Financial services giant AMP made 20 false statements to ASIC about charging 

for services it never provided, the commission heard. 

Experts have speculated that Hayne will recommend a complete overhaul of 

how banks pay their staff from the bottom up as well as forcing them to sell wealthmanagement 

divisions to avoid conflicts of interest.

EDITORIAL 

SATUrDAy, 

FEbrUAry 2, 2019 

4 

Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam 

Telephone: +8802-9104683-84, Fax: 9127103 

e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com 

Saturday, February 2, 2019 

Political stability 

indispensable 

for economy 

T 

ime 

and again analysts and expertsstressed 

the point that political stability is 

tooessential for the needed at least 8 per cent 

economic growth that could take Bangladesh in 

time to the goal of achieving middle income 

country status sustainably. The concern about 

instability has once again become relevant when 

the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) seems to 

be girding up its loins to launch afresh another 

mindless upheaval in the streets in support of its 

various rabid demands. It appears that this 

political juggernaut has learnt nothing from its 

previous sordid experience and cares little or 

nothing about the economic consequences of its 

renewed intention to plunge the country into 

another upheaval. Even now the economy has not 

well recovered from the battering it received 

during 2014 and the following year. Thus, 

politically induced violence-- reviving-would 

surely greatly hazard Bangladesh in acquiring the 

necessary annual economic growth rate to climb to 

a middle income country status by the targeted 

date. 

Of course, those who are critical of views and 

suggestions that seem to reflect the government's 

stand, they would understandably or 

pathologically tend to consider the above views as 

partisan ones aimed to promote government's 

objectives. 

But can we say the same about the Centre for Policy 

Dialogue (CPD) ? The CPD is a highly respected 

leading think-tank of the country. It is particularly 

esteemed for its objective and unemotional analysis 

of the national economy, for calling a spadea spade 

without hesitation. Thus, when the CPD also makes 

observations in an analysis of the Bangladesh 

economy that rhyme with the above views of concern, 

can we then dismiss off the same so easily or as 

politically motivated? The answer hardly needs an 

explanation ; it is self explanatory. 

Not only the CPD, other well known local and 

international think tanks, plus our main chamber 

bodies, and even the World Bank, the Asian 

Development Bank and other international 

organizations who engage in analyses of the 

Bangladesh economy, they have repeatedly 

pointed out the imperative of establishing long 

lasting political stability in the context of 

Bangladesh for this country to economically grow 

and develop at a faster pace to successfully 

overcome its remaining problems of poverty and 

underdevelopment. 

Underinvestment in its economy has been 

Bangladesh's big economic problem in varying 

degrees for decades. But notwithstanding the 

same, our economy has been showing remarkable 

resilience and capacity for moving forward in 

recent years. The growth momentum appeared so 

strong that all indications were the economy was 

headed to achieve its highest growth rate of some 

7 plus per cent in the outgoing fiscal year. That this 

did not happen and growth slumped somewhat in 

the end, was seen linked directly to the worst manmade 

and politically induced troubles all through 

from 2013-2015 particularly from the appearance 

of conditions that virtually brought all kinds of 

economic activities to a halt or near to a halt in 

that period. 

The economy has not adequately recovered from 

the very bad battering it received at that time. Its 

lingering problem of less than the desired amount 

of investment has now reached a worrying level . 

As it was highlighted in the CPD analysis, the 

predicament is mainly due to investors' lack of 

confidence . It is not that the traditional 

bottlenecks posed by government's inconsistent 

policies, non availability of enabling 

infrastructures, paucity of financial resources for 

borrowing, obstructive bureaucracy, insufficient 

energy supplies, etc., these are also creating 

disincentives for investments. But these problems 

have been sorted out considerably in different 

degrees in the last two years. What then is acting so 

powerfully to discourage investment decisions ? 

Anybody with a sensible bird's eyes views of the 

investment scenario would likely not fail to note 

that the investment train remains largely derailed 

from potential investors feeling not confident 

about getting in the longer run not even breakeven 

returns from their investments not to speak 

about decent profits out of continuing political 

instability. This apprehension which is scaring 

away investors is being caused by repeated threats 

by the BNP leaders that they would soon start 

another movement to unseat the present 

government from power. Therefore, it is the duty 

of all patriotic quarters in the country specially 

including the business quarters, to tell the BNP 

that nobody gave them any license to further 

destroy the economy by their so called movements 

started in the name of the people in which people 

are actually least interested. 

Saudi Arabia joins the bogle Age with MSCI Tadawul Index 

The Chinese government is 

responding to the rapid growth of 

Christianity in that country with 

violence and oppression, in an attempt to 

consolidate power. But that is exactly the 

wrong response. We at Bowyer Research 

urge President Xi Jinping to study recent 

history - and Chinese history - more 

carefully, to see that his government's 

campaign of imprisonment and violence 

is not likely to produce the stability he 

wants. In our investigation of the 

dynamics of regime change, we've found 

evidence that governments with high 

levels of Christian persecution are 

considerably more likely to have regime 

changes forced upon them than their 

non-persecuting counterparts. 

This should worry President Xi, as his 

administration has embarked on a brutal 

campaign of Christian repression. 

According to a report published last year 

by The Associated Press, Xi has waged 

"the most severe systematic suppression 

of Christianity in the country since 

religious freedom was written into the 

Chinese constitution in 1982 … 

destroying crosses, burning Bibles, 

shutting churches and ordering followers 

to sign papers renouncing their faith." 

Xi may very well be risking the stability 

of the Chinese state by attacking the 

Christian minority. Particularly 

noteworthy has been the imprisonment 

of Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant 

Church, along with his wife and dozens of 

members of his church. Pastor Yi wrote a 

brilliant exposition on the right to 

religious freedom and the limits of the 

Top index provider MSCI has 

teamed up with the Saudi Stock 

Exchange, above, to launch the 

tradeable MSCI Tadawul 30 Index. 

(Getty Images) 

Had Jack Bogle lived just a few days 

longer he would no doubt have been 

intrigued by this week's news from 

Saudi Arabia. 

Bogle was regarded as one of the 

greatest financial innovators to have 

ever lived. He was the brains behind the 

concept of index investing, by which an 

investor can put money directly into a 

stock market via an index of the market 

itself, rather than via the individual 

stocks of which the market is 

composed. 

Like all the best ideas, its simplicity 

was striking. Why pay for all that 

expensive advice, analysis, broking and 

management fees, and the rest of the 

paraphernalia of the global investment 

business? Why not instead buy a 

financial instrument that represents all 

the constituents of a stock market, 

weighted according to size and 

liquidity. Better still, why not let a 

computer do it for you? The absence of 

human effort put into the buy/sell 

decision led to the term "passive 

investment." 

Bogle's idea - though he was only at 

the beginning of the modern computer 

age when he had it - has revolutionized 

the investment business. Now passive 

investment in indices is by far the 

biggest part of the global investment 

universe.Unless you consciously chose 

to pay for the services of an oldfashioned 

investment adviser, your 

funds will almost certainly be handled 

digitally and will be linked to the value 

of an index. These days, especially in the 

decade since the global financial crisis, 

you will not hold shares in Apple, or 

General Electric, or Bank of America 

directly, but you will hold shares in the 

indices of the markets on which these 

stocks are traded. 

And a good thing too, because all the 

smart investment brains in the world 

do not do better, over an extended 

period, than the indices. Warren Buffet, 

renowned investment Sage of Omaha, 

recommends passive index investment 

over active, and has also suggested the 

US erects a statue to Bogle, who died 

last month aged 82. 

Last week, Saudi Arabia caught up 

with the Bogle revolution when the 

MSCI Tadawul Index went live for the 

first time. The new index was the logical 

and most fruitful outcome of the 

decision last year to grant Saudi Arabia 

FrANk kANE 

emerging market status by the index 

compiler MSCI. 

Before, any investor wanting to back 

the Kingdom's economic 

transformation would have to either 

buy a regional index, in which Saudi 

Arabia was mixed with other economies 

in the Middle East and North Africa, or 

go through the process of becoming a 

qualified investor and acquiring a 

regulated status in the Kingdom, to buy 

individual stocks such as SABIC or 

Unless you consciously chose to pay for the services of 

an old-fashioned investment adviser, your funds will 

almost certainly be handled digitally and will be linked to 

the value of an index. These days, especially in the 

decade since the global financial crisis, you will not hold 

shares in Apple, or General Electric, or bank of America 

directly, but you will hold shares in the indices of the 

markets on which these stocks are traded. 

state, reproducing the arguments of John 

Calvin and applying them to China in 

anticipation of his arrest, with 

instructions to have the declaration 

released if he were held for more than 48 

hours. Two months later, he and much of 

his flock were jailed, and this statement 

went out to the world. 

As a fellow Christian and as a human 

being, I am concerned about these 

victims of oppression. But I am also 

concerned about China, because my read 

of history and of the data is that it is 

dangerous to be a persecutor. 

We here at Bowyer Research are 

engaged in a research project that 

compares the number of regime changes 

since 2000 with the OpenDoorsUSA 

watch list, which tracks the 50 countries 

in which Christians are most persecuted. 

Our findings so far indicate a clear 

statistical relationship between 

persecuting the church and regime 

change. Unfortunately, there are some 

JErry bOWyEr 

NCB, two of the biggest corporates 

listed on the Tadawul. 

The new index was the logical and 

most fruitful outcome of the decision 

last year to grant Saudi Arabia 

emerging market status by the index 

compiler MSCI. 

Many big global investors did not 

want to go through that process, and in 

many cases they were forbidden by 

their constitutions from putting money 

into a market that had not received the 

seal of approval of an MSCI, or the 

significant data-availability issues that we 

are still working on. We only have recent 

persecution data. Since the persecution 

list (unfortunately) tends to be stable over 

time, we think the analysis is worth taking 

seriously, but the conclusion will be 

somewhat tentative until we are able to 

get longer-term persecution data. 

There are 193 United Nations member 

states (though we include Palestine in our 

data). Of those members, roughly 23% 

have experienced a regime change in the 

past 19 years. But 38% of the countries in 

the OpenDoorsUSA watchlist have 

experienced a regime change. 

Being on the watch list gives regimes 

worse odds of survival than Russian 

roulette. You might object that 

underdeveloped countries in sub- 

Saharan Africa are exaggerating the 

correlation, in that their frequent regime 

changes and trouble with Islamist 

terrorism don't have a clear causal link. 

But even if we remove the sub-Saharan 

other compilers such as FTSE Russel 

(which Tadawul will join later this 

year). 

Now, there is nothing to stop them 

getting a slice of the Saudi action via the 

new index. It will consist of about 30 of 

the biggest stocks in the Kingdom, 

though the composition can vary to 

allow as many as 35 to be included. In a 

while, the "MT30" - as the index will be 

known - could be as commonplace a 

phrase in the financial world as the S&P 

500 or the FTSE 100, the leading 

indices in New York and London. 

The index compilers have put a cap at 

15 percent for any individual stock's 

proportion of the index, which is 

designed to prevent an index or indeed 

an exchange, being too reliant on the 

performance of just one equity. 

For the time being, that is fine, but 

they may have to think again when 

Saudi Aramco finally makes its longawaited 

stock market debut. It will be so 

big that it will certainly break the 15 

percent ceiling. But the compilers and 

policymakers have some time to think 

about that. 

In the meantime, the new index gives 

foreign investors the opportunity to add 

Saudi Arabia to their investment 

portfolios in an affordable, efficient and 

traceable way, while the Kingdom gets 

access to the multitrillion-dollar passive 

investment market.Bogle - whose 

invention proved to be a "win-win" for 

markets and investors - would certainly 

have approved. 

Source: Arab news 

by persecuting Christians, Xi is risking his own regime 

Apersonal message from Tolerance 

Minister to Pope Francis When 

his holiness Pope Francis arrives 

in Abu Dhabi next week, it will be the 

first ever Papal visit to the Arabian Gulf. 

While this represents a milestone event 

in its own right, it is also a powerful 

testament to the longstanding values of 

acceptance, coexistence, inclusivity, 

tolerance and humanity that are 

embedded in the very core of the United 

Arab Emirates. Since the UAE's 

foundation, the rights and liberties of all 

creeds, sects and beliefs have been 

safeguarded. Our constitution protects 

freedom of spiritual expression and 

explicitly prohibits any form of 

discrimination based on religion or 

race. 

Pope Francis will find a country 

where over one million Christians 

practise their religion without 

hindrance alongside a majority 

Muslim population. Throughout the 

UAE, over forty churches welcome 

believers for prayers next door to 

Mosques, as well as Hindu, Sikh and 

Buddhist Temples. The UAE's 

acceptance of all religions is an 

expression of our leadership's 

commitment to an open society, one 

that welcomes people representing 

over 200 nationalities and ethnicities 

to work, live and thrive within our 

borders. This generous attitude 

toward others is a core tenet of our 

Our findings so far indicate a clear statistical relationship 

between persecuting the church and regime change. 

Unfortunately, there are some significant data-availability 

issues that we are still working on. We only have recent 

persecution data. Since the persecution list (unfortunately) 

tends to be stable over time, we think the analysis is worth 

taking seriously, but the conclusion will be somewhat tentative 

until we are able to get longer-term persecution data. 

Dr. SUlTAN AHMED Al JAbEr 

values, a key characteristic of our 

culture and a fundamental pillar of 

the vision of our founding father, 

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan. 

He realized that both his country and 

the wider region would benefit by 

building bridges and making cultural 

connections with the international 

community. This philosophy 

underpinned a foreign policy that 

seeks to create partnerships 

promoting prosperity around the 

world, based on mutual respect. And 

it is mirrored by a domestic policy 

that treats differing cultures equally. 

In this spirit, when the remains of a 

seventh century Christian monastery 

were discovered on Sir Bani Yas Island 

in 1992, Sheikh Zayed insisted that it 

be preserved both as a relic of shared 

spiritual history and a present day, 

potent symbol of cross-cultural 

harmony. The UAE first established 

diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 

2007, and, since then, relations with 

the Catholic Church have only 

strengthened. A high level visit to the 

Vatican followed in 2016 by HH Sheikh 

Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown 

Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy 

Supreme Commander of the UAE 

Armed Forces. Then, last year, HH 

Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of 

Foreign Affairs and International 

Cooperation, hand delivered the 

invitation for Pope Francis to make his 

historic visit to the UAE. 

During his visit, which will include a 

public mass, the Pope will meet with 

Sheikh Ahmad Al Tayyeb, the Grand 

Imam of Al Azhar, and the chairman of 

the Council of Muslim Elders. Bringing 

together the spiritual leaders of the 

Sunni and Catholic faiths, this meeting 

African countries, we still see a very 

strong correlation. More than half of all 

the states outside sub-Saharan Africa that 

have had a regime change since 2000 are 

on the OpenDoorsUSA watchlist. 

The Arab Spring is also very illustrative 

of this relationship. All five of the Arab 

Spring countries that experienced a 

regime change in 2011 are on the 

OpenDoorsUSA watchlist. 

By repressing its Christian churches, 

China finds itself in unstable company. If 

President Xi paid attention to the 

examples of recent history, he might 

rethink how he deals with China's fastestgrowing 

religion. 

But if that's not enough to convince 

him, perhaps a cursory examination of 

Chinese history will. Xi is in the process of 

making the same mistakes that led to one 

of the most disastrous events in China's 

history, which was a direct result of the 

Chinese state persecuting a Christian 

minority.The Taiping Rebellion, lasting 

from 1850 to 1864, killed at least 20 

million people, with some estimates 

putting the death toll above 70 million - 

higher than that of World War II. If Xi 

follows in the footsteps of the Xianfeng 

Emperor in 1850, his regime is at risk of 

more political instability, violence, and 

even regime change. It's as if Xi and the 

leadership learned the wrong lesson from 

the Taiping Civil War - viewing 

Christianity in itself as the cause, rather 

than the cause being the unjust 

persecution of Christianity. 

Source : Asia times 

Pope in UAE: Celebrating diversity and tolerance in UAE 

The UAE first established diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 

2007, and, since then, relations with the Catholic Church have only 

strengthened. A high level visit to the Vatican followed in 2016 by HH 

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi 

and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. Then, 

last year, HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs 

and International Cooperation, hand delivered the invitation for 

Pope Francis to make his historic visit to the UAE. 

will demonstrate a shared 

commitment to the principles of 

mutual respect, and peaceful 

coexistence. 

Coming in the "year of tolerance", 

the Papal visit helps define what we 

mean by this term. The visit 

reinforces the UAE's ethos of active 

inclusiveness and reminds us that 

tolerance is not a passive state, but 

requires constant, consistent action. 

It is the same principle that drives 

our focus on a fairer society, where 

gender balance within our leading 

institutions is being realized by being 

prioritized. 

It is in this context that we should 

view next week's landmark events. By 

hosting Pope Francis, we are sending a 

message to all those living among us, 

regardless of creed or culture, that they 

should not merely feel accepted, but 

are welcomed as active participants 

and celebrated for the positive 

contribution they make to the UAE. 

The UAE is made stronger by the 

diversity of the communities that have 

chosen to make our country their 

home. In embracing this diversity, the 

UAE will continue to prosper, extend a 

positive influence throughout the 

wider region and encourage peaceful 

coexistence globally. 

Source : Gulf news

SCIENCE & TECH 

SATURdAy, 

FEBRUARy 2, 2019 

5 

What’s next for cryptocurrencies? 

Richard Partington 

Two years after its inception, 

10,000 bitcoin was just 

about enough to buy a 

couple of takeaway pizzas. 

Today those bitcoin would 

be worth nearly $38m 

(£30m). That is a huge 

increase, but just a fraction 

of their $180m value only 13 

months ago, because since 

its creation a decade ago this 

week, the digital currency 

has been at the centre of one 

of the biggest economic 

bubbles in history. 

Bitcoin has had a wild ride 

since its birth on 3 January 

2009. Created as a digital 

currency to sidestep the 

traditional finance industry 

using encrypted code, it took 

until May 2010 for the first 

reported purchase using 

bitcoin to take place: those 

two large Papa John's pizzas 

worth $30 for 10,000 

bitcoins. 

But in recent years bitcoin 

has become less useful as a 

medium of exchange and 

more famous for its boombust 

tendencies - drawing 

parallels to the Dutch tulip 

mania of 1637 and Dante's 

Inferno for its ability to lose 

investors millions of 

pounds. 

It surged by more than 

Is bitcoin the 'mother of all bubbles' or a niche investment? 

1,000%, sometimes gaining 

$2,500 in a single day, to 

stand at almost $20,000 

just before Christmas 2017. 

But the digital currency 

then crumpled over the 

course of last year, and 

yesterday stood at just 

$3,780, having wiped out 

many investments on the 

way down. 

Nouriel Roubini, one of 

the few economists to 

predict the 2008 financial 

crash and a former White 

House economic adviser is 

one of Bitcoin's most vocal 

critics. He has called it the 

"mother of all bubbles" and 

tweeted last month that 

it,and other crypto copycats 

like Ethereum and Litecoin, 

should be ranked in a "2018 

Shitcoin Hall/Pile of 

Manure Shame". But 

despite the cautionary 

warnings from mainstream 

Photo: Bloomberg 

economists, as well as the 

finance industry labelling 

bitcoin a vehicle for 

scammers, crooks and 

terrorists, there are still 

legions of cryptocurrency 

fans, with an online cottage 

industry of news websites, 

blogs and podcasts. 

The digital currency 

launched as more than just 

an opportunity for investors 

to make millions (before 

losing them almost equal 

amounts). The technology 

underlying it has excited 

businesses, while the 

growth of cryptocurrencies 

promised another future for 

its fans outside the 

traditional financial system. 

At its launch a decade ago, 

the very first block of bitcoin 

was etched with a 

subversive statement: "The 

Times 03/Jan/2009 

Chancellor on brink of 

second bailout for 

banks."The message from 

its creator - an unknown 

person or group of people 

going by the name Satoshi 

Nakamoto - was clear: 

bitcoin would exist outside 

of a system that had failed 

badly and could no longer 

be trusted. 

The idea came straight 

from the Austrian school 

of economics with a pinch 

of left-wing anarchism 

thrown in for good 

measure - offering 

individual liberty and a 

way to avoid the grasp of 

government, while 

sidestepping corporate 

power and the banking 

system. 

The birth of the digital 

currency represented a 

return to the days of 

private money in the 

earlier stages of western 

economic development, 

with a parallel to wildcat 

banks in the mid 19th 

century as the US expanded 

westward, when railway 

companies and 

construction firms issued 

thousands of banknotes 

between them. Scores of 

bitcoin copycats have 

emerged, hoping to ride the 

wave of euphoria evident in 

2017, launched through 

initial coin offerings (ICOs) 

that in several cases turned 

out to be fraudulent scams. 

How to recover an email 

address of a stolen device? 

Jack Schofield 

First, recover your phone 

number, which is much 

more important than the 

phone. When a phone is 

either lost or stolen, you 

should immediately contact 

your mobile network 

provider to tell them what's 

happened. They should then 

suspend the current sim and 

send you a replacement sim 

with the same phone 

number. This service should 

be free but sometimes incurs 

a nominal charge. It won't 

get your phone back, but it 

will make it harder for the 

thief to log on to your 

accounts and change your 

passwords. 

Some network providers 

can also block your 

handset's 

IMEI 

(International Mobile 

Equipment Identity) 

number. This makes it 

harder for the thief to use 

your phone with a different 

sim. Of course, you will need 

to be able to show that you 

own your phone number, 

and different companies 

may have different systems 

for different types of 

account. My advice is to be 

prepared. I wasn't, and it 

wasn't fun. 

When I lost my phone in 

November - I left it on a 

plane in Kuala Lumpur - I 

phoned O2 but couldn't pass 

the recovery tests, which 

included providing some 

numbers I'd dialled in the 

past three months. Being 

6,500 miles from home, I 

couldn't look up the phone 

number of my window 

cleaner, whose surname I 

couldn't remember. 

Back in the UK three 

weeks later, an O2 store 

refused to accept any other 

evidence that I owned this 

pay-as-you-go number, 

which was originally 

supplied by BT Cellnet 

before O2 was launched in 

2002. It was on my business 

cards, in ancient emails, in 

online media databases and 

so on. I could also prove I 

owned the bank account that 

paid for its minutes. O2 

wouldn't budge. Only after 

Someone's mobile was taken and his password changed. How can he get 

back into his inbox? 

Photo: Epoxydude 

digging out my window 

cleaner's phone number did 

I eventually get a 

replacement sim. 

Not carrying around a 

written list of the numbers 

I'd dialled was clearly a bad 

mistake on my part, but full 

marks to O2 for using the 

Data Protection Act to put 

my personal data at risk. If 

you have not yet lost your 

phone, or had it stolen, I 

strongly suggest that you 

find out what will happen if 

you do. You could easily 

lose a number you've used 

for 20-odd years. While 

trying to recover my 

number, I took steps to 

limit the damage someone 

could do if they were able 

to use my lost phone. You 

should likewise log on to 

any other accounts that 

hold your phone number, 

such as Facebook, 

LinkedIn, Twitter and so 

on, including any mobile 

banking or payment 

systems. Set up and 

confirm an alternative 

email address as a way of 

recovering your accounts, 

delete the compromised 

phone number, and change 

your passwords before the 

thief can do the same thing. 

You can also try to disable 

or erase your phone 

remotely, via the web. If it's 

an iPhone, log on with your 

Apple ID and use Lost 

Mode, which is part of Find 

My Phone. If it's an Android 

phone, log on to your Google 

account and go to Find My 

Device. This does depend on 

certain conditions, one of 

which is that the lost or 

stolen phone must have a 

mobile or wifi network 

connection. I did try to erase 

my lost phone, because it 

was backed up to Google 

Drive. I failed because, as far 

as I could tell, it was never 

switched on. It may still be 

flying between London and 

KL. 

As we grow wiser to marketing, advertisers are finding new ways and places to plug products. 

Photo: James Melaugh 

Why the ad-free era is over 

Chris Stokel-Walker 

We've weaned ourselves off banner 

advertisements, with a fifth of us using 

ad blockers in our internet browsers, 

according to research firm eMarketer. 

So-called "native advertising" online, 

where advertising is presented in a 

similar way to editorial, has failed to 

take off. A US study last year from 

Stanford University found native 

advertising is no better at getting us to 

buy than standard online ads. 

"Consumers are very good at filtering 

out messages," explains Lisa Du-Lieu, a 

senior lecturer in marketing at 

Huddersfield University. "If you don't 

get their attention within the first 

couple of seconds, it just bounces off 

them." 

For that reason, brands are shifting 

their attention to platforms and 

formats that they know we are engaged 

with. "Advertising goes where the 

eyeballs go," says James Whatley, an 

independent advertising expert, 

formerly of global advertising agency 

Ogilvy. 

However, a large part of the user 

appeal of some of these platforms, such 

as WhatsApp or Alexa, is that they are 

currently ad-free. So ads encroaching 

on hitherto virgin territory could raise 

some hackles. Nevertheless, you can 

expect ads in places you might not have 

expected before. Batten down the 

hatches and prepare yourself for the 

advertising onslaught. 

Ogilvy's 2019 trends report revealed 

how smart speakers will soon be the 

latest platform for their dark arts. 

While such smart speakers have all 

kinds of bells and whistles, many of us 

use them as little more than glorified 

digital radios. "Localised advertising 

can be sent to that," explains Whatley. 

"It isn't an exciting thing, but for an 

advertiser it becomes attractive 

because you can do personalised, 

locally relevant advertising through 

what is a forgotten channel." 

By cross-checking your IP address, 

search history made through the device 

and its location, advertisers could soon 

send you hyper-localised 

advertisements interspersed in your 

ordinary digital radio content. Has your 

local Tesco ordered too many boxes of 

biscuits? Enjoy flash sales that will save 

you money as you listen along to the 

latest chart music. 

This method of advertising is already 

encroaching on our screen time, with 

brands partnering with Snapchat to 

create custom branded lenses 

(augmented reality widgets that can 

transform you into a dog with a giant, 

unfurling lapping tongue, for instance) 

for the best part of a year. But 2019 will 

see it take off, according to experts. 

It also enables brands to advertise 

directly to a hard-to-reach and 

pernickety demographic. "Millennials 

like things that are quirky," says Du- 

Lieu. "Snapchat filters are just a way of 

pushing out the message and creating 

what's called PBA: positive brand 

associations." It's also (comparatively) 

cheap: placing a custom branded lens 

available for anyone using Snapchat in 

London's Hyde Park over the course of 

a day costs just under £850. If you're 

Wall's wanting to drive Calippo envy on 

a particularly hot day, such a small, 

localised outlay might make fiscal 

sense. 

Such methods of advertising take 

advantage of the social element of 

social networks. By sharing our 

augmented ad with your friends, you're 

unwittingly doing the work for the 

brand. "When users connect with a 

product on a cognitive and affective 

level, by thinking and feeling," says Du- 

Lieu, "they push it out to their 

networks." In other words: if you want 

something to go viral, make it fun. 

Nudging users to pick their product 

over another, often in a subconscious 

way, is becoming the predominant way 

of an advertiser getting its message out 

there. Jay Owens of Pulsar, an 

"audience intelligence and social 

listening platform", describes this as 

"shaping the decision architectures and 

choice offered to people". 

Amazon, as one of the major conduits 

through which we spend vast amounts 

of money, is leading the way in this 

semi-stealthy sponsored advertising. 

Analysts Piper Jaffray estimate that 

Amazon's advertising business could 

surpass its mammoth web-hosting 

business by 2021 - in part thanks to 

what the advertising industry would 

call "sponsored skills" and "branded 

solutions" but users might describe as 

"sneaky". 

It could be as simple as suggesting a 

branded product when you ask Alexa 

how to get rid of that stain on your 

shirt, or slipping a particular brand into 

your Amazon shopping basket when 

you ask Alexa to order you new 

washing-up liquid. 

Sounds like a dystopian future? It's 

already here. Amazon has been rapped 

on the knuckles for stealthily plugging 

products by putting sponsored listings 

in among actual curated listings and 

making the text so tiny that you don't 

notice. 

Facebook posts record profit 

despite year of scandal 

Julia Carrie Wong 

Facebook closed the book 

on its scandal-plagued year 

Wednesday, with strong 

fourth quarter financial 

results that beat analyst 

expectations for earnings 

and revenue. The results 

highlighted how divorced 

Facebook's business success 

is from its public reputation, 

which suffered another 

blow Wednesday when 

Apple punished the app 

maker for violating its rules 

with a program that paid 

users as young as 13 to 

install an app that surveilled 

them. 

The company posted a 

record profit of $6.88bn for 

the final three months of 

2018, compared with 

$4.27bn the year before, 

with revenue rising 30% to 

$16.64bn. Key usage 

metrics - daily active users 

and monthly active users - 

both saw 9% year-over-year 

growth. Facebook now 

estimates that it has 2bn 

daily active users of at least 

one of its entire "family" of 

apps - Facebook, 

Instagram, Messenger and 

WhatsApp. 

The positive results for 

revenue and user growth 

sent shares soaring 8% in 

after-hours trading. 

Crucially, usage metrics 

grew across all geographic 

regions, including slight 

growth in Europe and 

North America. In July, 

Facebook's stock price 

plummeted after the 

second-quarter earnings 

showed stagnating user 

growth in North America 

and a slight decline in 

Europe. 

On a conference call with 

investors, executives Mark 

Zuckerberg and Sheryl 

Sandberg sketched a path 

for the company to move 

forward from the constant 

damage control mode of 

2018. Both executives 

attempted to frame the 

company's extensive 

problems - such as the 

misuse of private data, 

rampant misinformation, 

and foreign influence 

operations - as "social 

issues" endemic to the 

internet as a whole, and not 

particular to Facebook. 

Zuckerberg asserted that 

Facebook 

had 

"fundamentally changed 

how we run this company" 

and greatly improved its 

systems to reduce future 

problems. As such, he 

suggested that in 2019, the 

company would be able to 

refocus on product 

development to "deliver 

more experiences that 

meaningfully improve 

people's lives" with new 

innovations in messaging, 

payments, groups, video 

and hardware. 

Among the product 

changes is a planned 

integration of messaging 

platforms for WhatsApp, 

Instagram and Messenger, 

which was first reported by 

the New York Times last 

week. Zuckerberg 

confirmed that the 

company was considering 

this change, which he said 

was still a "long term 

project" and would see 

more of Facebook's 

products using end-to-end 

encryption. 

"Facebook might have 

delivered its weakest 

quarterly revenue growth 

since listing in 2012, but 

these numbers are actually 

some of the most reassuring 

in its short history," said 

George Salmon, an equity 

analyst at Hargreaves 

Lansdown. "The way that I 

feel starting 2019 is that we 

have clear roadmaps 

looking at what we need to 

do," Zuckerberg said. "I do 

feel like we've started to turn 

Facebook's fourth-quarter results highlighted 

the distance between its business success and its 

public reputation. Photo: Charles Platiau 

a corner and have a clear 

plan for what we need to do 

now."

ECONOMY & BUSINESS 

6 

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2019 

A view exchange meeting between Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd and international corporate consultancy 

firm Kroll was held on Thursday at Islami Bank Tower. Md. Mahbub ul Alam, 

Managing Director and CEO of the bank was present in the program as chief guest. Abu Reza 

Md. Yeahia and Taher Ahmed Chowdhury, Deputy Managing Directors, Mohammad Jamal 

Uddin Mozumder, Executive Vice President and Md. Rafiqul Islam, Senior Vice President of 

IBBL, Omer Erginsoy, Senior Managing Director, Tarun Bhatia, Managing Director and 

Samarjit Sawant, Associate Director of Kroll along with other executives of the bank were present 

on the occasion. The meeting discussed compliance issues of Banking rules and regulations. 

Kroll has been working with IBBL since 2015. IBBL has already complied the first and second 

phase of Kroll advises for compliance of banking rules and the progress of implementation of 

the third phase is being examined. Transaction Monitoring system for IBBL provided by US 

based SAS Institute Private Limited was shown to the team and the Kroll team expressed satisfaction 

over the Transaction Monitoring System. 

Photo:Courtesy 

Deutsche Bank reports first 

annual profit in four years 

India announces 

$10.5 billion 

farmer income 

scheme ahead of 

elections 

India's government 

announced Friday a $10.5- 

billion scheme to help crisishit 

farmers, seeking to boost 

support ahead of a tough reelection 

bid by Prime Minister 

Narendra Modi. 

Thousands of farmers hit by 

low produce prices, crippling 

debt repayments and volatile 

weather have killed 

themselves in recent years. 

This and rising joblessness 

have hit Modi's popularity. 

The new scheme, part of the 

current government's last 

interim budget before the 

election, will give 120 million 

"small and marginal" farmers 

direct annual handouts of 

around 6,000 rupees ($85). 

"This amount will be 

transferred directly to bank 

accounts of farmers in three 

equal instalments," Piyush 

Goyal, interim finance 

minister, told a raucous 

session of parliament in New 

Delhi. 

The programme will be fully 

funded by the central 

government, Goyal said. 

The crisis in Indian 

agriculture and rising 

joblessness are emerging as 

key factors ahead of the 

elections due by May, when 

Modi will run for a second 

term. 

Asian markets mixed 

as China, US agree to 

further trade talks 

Asian markets mostly rose 

Friday, with investors 

treading carefully as China- 

US trade talks ended with 

no deal but with both sides 

sounding notes of optimism 

and setting up more highlevel 

meetings later this 

month. 

After the muchanticipated 

gathering, 

Donald Trump hailed 

"tremendous progress" 

between the world's top two 

economies but warned the 

"hard deadline" of March 1 

remained in place, after 

which US tariffs on billions 

of dollars of Chinese goods 

will be imposed. 

For its part, Beijing said 

they held "candid, specific 

and fruitful" discussions 

and had agreed to increase 

cooperation on intellectual 

property -a major source of 

White House anger with 

China - and boost imports of 

US goods. 

Trump's top two 

economic officials will visit 

Beijing later this month, 

after which he said he will 

meet his counterpart Xi 

Jinping to hammer out the 

final deal. 

While the negotiations 

ended with no agreement, 

Jeffrey Halley, senior 

market analyst at OANDA, 

said: "For the markets, 

which are clearly in 'risk-on' 

mood, it was a case of no 

news is good news." 

However, an early surge 

across the region petered 

out to leave markets mixed. 

Tokyo ended 0.1 percent 

higher and Hong Kong was 

marginally lower, while 

Shanghai jumped 1.3 

percent as traders 

welcomed news that 

authorities had relaxed 

certain rules to make 

investing easier. 

Sydney and Singapore 

were both flat and Seoul 

dipped 0.1 percent, though 

Manila, Mumbai, Bangkok 

and Jakarta were all up. 

In early trade London rose 

0.3 percent, while Frankfurt 

and Paris each added 0.2 

percent. "The statement 

certainly signals progress, 

but at best limited progress 

on the core long-term 

structural issues that 

separate the two sides," 

Eswar Prasad, a trade policy 

professor at Cornell 

University, told Bloomberg 

News. "The statement ends 

with a not-so-veiled threat 

that China will need to offer 

more substantive 

concessions to enable a deal 

that would take further 

tariffs off the table." 

The tepid movement in 

markets also comes after an 

impressive month that saw 

Hong Kong pile on more 

than eight percent and 

Tokyo more than four 

percent, a much-needed 

bounce after December's 

hammering. 

Next on the agenda is the 

release of US jobs data later 

Friday, which comes days 

after the Federal Reserve 

fuelled a rally by signalling a 

slowdown in its pace of 

interest rate hikes this year. 

The non-farm payrolls 

figures will be closely 

watched for an idea about 

the state of the world's 

number-one economy, with 

the Fed having warned of a 

global slowdown. Sony 

nine-month net profit soars 

on games, music. 

Germany's biggest lender Deutsche 

Bank reported Friday a 2018 bottom 

line in the black for the first time in four 

years, with a cost-cutting drive 

delivering results even as revenues fell. 

The firm reported 267 million euros 

($305 million) net profit, compared 

with a loss of 751 million in 2017. 

The result was short of expectations 

of 505 million euros from analysts 

surveyed by Factset. 

Pre-tax profits at the financial firm 

were up eight percent year-on-year, at 

1.3 billion euros. 

But revenues fell four percent, to 25.3 

billion euros, with Deutsche blaming a 

fourth quarter marked by "challenging 

financial markets" and "negative" 

headlines, including a November raid 

by prosecutors on the bank's Frankfurt 

headquarters. 

Between October and December, the 

firm reported a net loss of 425 million 

euros. 

Nevertheless, "our return to 

profitability shows that Deutsche Bank 

Honda lifts 

forecasts despite 

ninth-month 

profit drop 

Japan's Honda Motor said 

Friday it was revising up 

forecasts for its full-year net 

profit despite logging a fall of 

34.5 percent for the nine 

months to December. 

The country's third-largest 

automaker revised up its full 

year net profit to 695 billion 

yen ($6.3 billion) from the 

previous forecast of 675 

billion yen, while also lifting 

annual sales to 15.85 trillion 

yen from 15.80 trillion. 

For April-December, net 

profit fell to 623.3 billion yen 

"due mainly to the impacts 

of the enactment of the US 

tax cuts and Jobs Act in the 

same period last year", 

Honda said. 

Operating profit fell 3.2 

percent mainly because of 

decreased sales revenue, as 

well as increased sales and 

administrative costs and 

"negative foreign currency 

effects", it added. 

The company said auto 

sales in Japan grew 4.4 

percent but US sales slipped 

2.6 percent to 1.242 million 

units. Sales in China, where 

the economy is suffering a 

growth slowdown, also fell. 

But motorcycle sales 

climbed 6.6 percent in 

emerging Asian markets 

including India, Vietnam, 

Thailand and Indonesia, it 

said. 

"Honda has been 

enjoying strong sales of 

motorcycles especially in 

Southeast Asia," Satoru 

Takada, an analyst at TIW, 

a Tokyo-based research 

and consulting firm, told 

AFP ahead of the earnings 

report. 

Uzbekistan gives visa-free entry 

to visitors from 45 countries 

Uzbekistan on Friday 

granted visa-free entry to 

citizens of 45 countries to 

boost tourism, which the 

government views as vital for 

economic growth. 

The countries benefiting 

from a 30-day visa waiver 

that went into force on Friday 

include the majority of 

European countries 

including Britain as well as 

Australia, Canada, Argentina 

and Chile. The United States 

is a notable exception. 

The impoverished ex- 

Soviet country has made 

tourism a priority to reduce 

its dependence on 

commodity exports. 

The government is keen to 

show off the lavish Silk Road 

heritage of ancient cities such 

as Bukhara, Khiva and 

The BSE benchmark Sensex Friday jumped 

over 100 points ahead of the Budget 

presentation by Finance Minister Piyush 

Goyal amid heavy 

buying by foreign portfolio investors. 

The 30-share index was trading 119.01 

points, or 0.33 per cent, higher at 36,375.70. 

Similarly, the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 

34.15, or 0.32 per cent, to 10,865.10. 

On Thursday, the 30-share Sensex rallied 

665.44 points, or 1.87 per cent, to close at 

36,256.69; and the broader Nifty soared 

179.15 points, or 1.68 per cent, to 10,830.95.. 

Top gainers in the Sensex pack include 

Hero MotoCorp, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, 

Bajaj Finance, Infosys, HDFC, HUL, M&M, 

Samarkand. Earlier this year, 

Uzbekistan granted a 30-day 

visa waiver to Germany while 

France became the first 

European Union country to 

benefit from the measure last 

year. 

Uzbekistan's tourism 

committee said last month 

that annual visitor numbers 

for 2018 were 5.3 million, 

double the figure for 2017. 

President Shavkat 

Mirziyoyev has reversed a 

number of policies that 

hampered tourism under his 

late predecessor Islam 

Karimov. 

Among the restrictions he 

scrapped was a ban on 

photography in the capital 

Tashkent's ornate metro that 

had led to police detentions of 

unsuspecting tourists. 

is on the right track," chief executive 

Christian Sewing said in a statement, 

adding that he aims to "grow 

profitability substantially" in 2019. 

Sewing was named CEO in early 

2018 after the bank struggled for years 

to escape financial woes and a thicket of 

legal entanglements dating back to the 

years before the 2008 financial crisis. 

He has launched a new round of 

restructuring to focus on home market 

Germany, cut costs and slash 

headcount. 

Almost 6,000 departures in 2018 

brought the payroll down to 91,700, 

while Deutsche reduced costs five 

percent, to 23.5 billion euros. 

The bank's turnaround may not be 

advancing quickly enough for some 

shareholders and the German 

government, which has said it wants 

strong lenders to support the country's 

firms in their international business. 

Bloomberg News reported Thursday 

that executives' talks with Berlin over a 

possible merger with partially stateowned 

rival Commerzbank have 

"intensified" in recent months. 

In the bank's different divisions, 

operating profit at the retail and 

commercial banking unit was roughly 

flat, while the flagship corporate and 

investment bank unit tumbled eight 

percent. 

There was a steeper fall for the 

smaller asset management arm, whose 

profits shed 14 percent. 

Deutsche added that by the end of the 

year, it had "wholly or partially resolved 

19 of the 20 most significant" looming 

legal risks identified in 2016, with 1.2 

billion euros of provisions set aside for 

litigation costs. 

Looking ahead to 2019, the group 

aims to cut costs to 21.8 billion euros, 

compared with a previous target of 22 

billion, while shrinking its workforce to 

"well below" 90,000. 

In financial terms, Deutsche will 

target a return on tangible equity of 

four percent, compared with 0.5 

percent in 2018. 

Mirziyoyev's bid to boost 

tourism in the immediate 

aftermath of Karimov's death 

in 2016 suffered a false start. 

In December that year, he 

issued an order easing or 

cancelling visa requirements 

for visitors from 27 developed 

countries but this was swiftly 

reversed before coming into 

force. 

Observers attributed the 

reversal to resistance within 

the powerful security 

apparatus. 

Uzbekistan already offers 

visa-free entry to visitors 

from Turkey, Israel, 

Indonesia, South Korea, 

Malaysia, Singapore and 

Japan, in addition to longstanding 

reciprocal visa-free 

entry for citizens of most 

former Soviet countries. 

Sensex jumps over 100 pts 

ahead of Budget 2019 

L&T, ITC and Maruti, rising up to 2.91 per 

cent. 

Vedanta was the biggest loser on Sensex, 

cracking over 18 per cent after the metals and 

mining giant Thursday reported a 25.54 per 

cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 

1,574 crore for the December 2018 quarter, 

on the back of higher expenses and drop in 

commodity prices. 

Other losers include PowerGrid, ONGC, 

Axis Bank, Kotak Bank and Sun Pharma, 

shedding up to 1.14 per cent. 

According to Hemang Jani, Head - 

Advisory at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, the 

government might look to boost the rural and 

agri sector ahead of the general election. 

The Launching Ceremony of "Modhumoti Digital Banking" at Haridaspur, Nijamkandi, Puisur, 

Bethuri, Hatiara, Fukra and Mahmudpur UDC Points was held on 29th January 2019 at Gopalganj 

Sadar & Kashiani Upazila, Gopalganj. Kherud Ranjan Biswas, Chairman of Bethuri Union Parishad 

inaugurated the Digital Points as Chief Guest. Moklesur Rahman, Senior Vice President and Head of 

Agent Banking Operation of Modhumoti Bank Ltd, Chairman of respective Union Parishads and local 

elites were present on the occasion. Modhumoti Bank took the initiative of Agent Banking through 

signing an agreement with Access to Information (a2i) of Prime Minister's Office, where the entrepreneurs 

of Union Digital Center (UDC) shall be the Agent of the Bank. Presently the bank with its 292 

Digital Points providing banking services like Account Opening, Cash Deposit, Cash Withdrawal, 

Money Transfer, Balance Inquiry, Withdrawal of Foreign Remittance etc. in the name of "Modhumoti 

Digital Banking". 

Photo: Courtesy 

Sony nine-month 

net profit soars 

on games, music 

Sony said Friday its ninemonth 

net profit jumped 63.2 

percent from the previous 

year, led by its games and 

music divisions. 

The electronics and 

entertainment giant lowered 

its annual sales forecast but 

raised its annual net profit 

forecast thanks to tax benefits. 

Sony said its April- 

December net profit reached 

828.4 billion yen ($7.6 

billion). 

Operating profit rose 13.9 

percent to 811.5 billion yen, 

while sales reached 6.54 

trillion yen, down 0.8 percent. 

"Sony remains on recovery 

track," Hideki Yasuda, an 

analyst at Ace Research 

Institute in Tokyo, told AFP 

ahead of the announcement. 

"Its game sector has 

continued spearheading its 

recovery although sales of PS4 

consoles are gradually slowing 

down." 

Sony's movie segment also 

drove home more profits, said 

Yasuo Imanaka, an analyst at 

Rakuten Securities. 

"Its recent box-office 

movies are now generating 

profit through sales of DVD 

and Blu-ray discs as well as 

profits from their television 

license fees," he told AFP 

ahead of the announcement. 

In the three months to 

December, including the allimportant 

holiday shopping 

season, Sony said it continued 

to enjoy robust game software 

sales, although sales of 

PlayStation4 consoles slowed 

down. 

Tokyo's Nikkei index ends flat 

as investors seek fresh clues 

Tokyo's benchmark 

Nikkei index ended flat on 

Friday as investors sought 

fresh trading clues and 

watched individual corporate 

earnings reports. 

The Nikkei 225 index 

closed up just 0.07 percent 

or 14.90 points at 

20,788.39, while the 

broader Topix index was 

down 0.18 percent or 2.86 

points at 1,564.63. 

The twin indexes were 

trading in positive territory 

in early trade but lost 

steam later, with some analysts 

also pointing to a negative 

impact from a weak 

Chinese manufacturing 

data released during Tokyo 

trading time. 

"Following rallies on 

Thursday after the US Fed 

signalled a dovish view on 

rate hikes, investors are 

seeking fresh clues," Hiroaki 

Hiwata, strategist at 

Toyo Securities, told AFP. 

"Having said that, it is 

increasingly difficult for 

investors to buy as the 

Nikkei index is approaching 

the 21,000 mark" 

which is considered psychologically 

important, he 

said. 

Investors are watching 

individual shares as company 

earnings are being 

released, he also added. 

The dollar fetched 

108.86 yen in Asian trade, 

against 108.88 yen in New 

York late Thursday. 

In Tokyo, high-tech 

shares were higher, with 

Sharp surging 10.32 percent 

to 1,272 yen while 

Murata Mfg advancing 

8.46 percent to 16,725 yen 

after it said its net profit for 

the nine months to December 

jumped nearly 40 percent. 

Fanuc gained 1.98 

percent to 18,725 yen 

despite the industrial robot 

manufacturer revising 

down its full-year earnings 

forecasts. 

Brokerage giant Nomura 

closed down 4.02 percent 

at 4,241 yen after it posted 

a net loss for the nine 


Nintendo dived 9.19 percent 

to 30,720 yen despite 

its net profit jumping nearly 

a quarter for the nine 


The game giant lowered 

its Switch game console 

sales forecast for full year 

to 17 million units from 20 

million units and pushed 

back the release date of 

Mario Kart smartphone 

game. 

Japan's labour shortage 

hits 45-year high 

There were 161 jobs for every 100 jobseekers on average 

last year in Japan, the highest ratio since 1973, highlighting 

the labour shortage in the world's third-largest economy and 

its ageing society. 

According to labour ministry data released on Friday, the 

ratio was even higher in December, at 163 jobs available for 

every 100 people looking for work. The Japanese labour 

market has been tight for many years as the workforce 

shrinks with a rapidly ageing population and a low childbirth 

rate. The country's unemployment rate also remained at low 

levels in December, hitting 2.4 percent, a 0.1-percentage 

point drop from the previous month, according to separate 

data from the internal affairs ministry. 

Along with a labour shortage, Japan has also been engaged 

in a lengthy battle against deflation. Last month, the Bank of 

Japan lowered its inflation forecasts for the fiscal year ending 

March next year to 0.9 percent from 1.4 percent. 

Japan's economy shrank in the three months to September 

after a string of natural disasters hit consumer spending and 

exports.

MISCELLANEOUS 

SATurDAY, FebruArY 2, 2019 

7 

20 charged in Chinese birth 

tourism crackdown 

Dongyuan Li's business was called "You Win USA," and 

authorities say she coached pregnant Chinese women on how 

to get into the United States to deliver babies who would 

automatically enjoy all the benefits of American citizenship, 

reports UNB. 

Over two years, the now-41-year-old raked in millions 

through her business, where mothers-to-be paid between 

$40,000 and $80,000 each to come to California, stay in an 

upscale apartment and give birth, authorities said. 

Li, who was arrested Thursday, is one of 20 people charged 

in the first federal crackdown on birth tourism businesses that 

prosecutors said brought hundreds of pregnant women to the 

United States. 

Jing Dong, 42, and Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 53, who allegedly 

operated "USA Happy Baby," also were arrested. 

All three pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges including 

conspiracy, visa fraud and money laundering, according to 

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in 

Los Angeles. Trials were scheduled for March 26. 

More than a dozen others, including the operator of a third 

such business, also face charges but are believed to have 

returned to China, prosecutors said. 

While it isn't illegal to visit the United States while pregnant, 

authorities said the businesses - which were raided by federal 

agents in 2015 - touted the benefits of having U.S. citizen 

babies, who could get free public education and years later 

help their parents immigrate. 

They also allegedly had women hide their pregnancies while 

seeking travel visas and lie about their plans, with one You 

Win USA customer telling consular officials she was going to 

visit a Trump hotel in Hawaii. 

U.S. authorities said the businesses also posed a national 

security risk since their customers, some who worked for the 

Chinese government, secured American citizenship for 

children who can move back to the United States and once 

they're 21 and then sponsor their parents for green cards. 

"I see this as a grave national security concern and 

vulnerability," said Mark Zito, assistant special agent-incharge 

of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's homeland 

security investigations. "Are some of them doing it for security 

because the United States is more stable? Absolutely. But will 

those governments take advantage of this? Yes, they will." 

Messages left for Li and Dong's attorneys were not 

immediately returned. Derek Tung, Liu's attorney, said the 

growing interest among Chinese women to give birth to 

American babies drew attention to a phenomenon long 

employed by citizens of other countries. 

His client had nothing to do with getting women visas from 

China but worked almost as a subcontractor to provide 

housing once they arrived, he said. 

Natural gas shortage 

ends, auto plants to 

resume production 

Dozens of Michigan auto 

plants and large commercial 

buildings that were forced to 

close or cut operations 

Thursday due to a natural 

gas shortage can resume 

production at midnight, 

reports UNB. 

Consumers Energy had 

asked the plants and other 

big gas users to curtail work 

for fear of running out of gas 

for homes and other critical 

buildings during a recordsetting 

deep freeze. The 

shortage was caused by a fire 

Wednesday that knocked 

out a natural gas compressor 

station north of Detroit just 

as 

temperatures 

plummeted. Consumers 

Energy CEO Patti Poppe 

said Thursday afternoon 

that crews had repaired part 

of the fire-damaged station 

and ample gas supplies are 

now available. 

At least 18 factories and 

other facilities run by 

General Motors, Ford and 

Fiat Chrysler were affected. 

Consumers Energy, the 

state's largest natural gas 

provider, said gas flow from 

the compressor station had 

to be shut off, leaving 

Michigan residents at risk of 

brief service interruptions in 

subzero temperatures. 

The utility said more than 

100 of its largest industrial 

customers cut their gas 

usage to help get through the 

shortage. 

Fiat Chrysler closed its 

truck assembly plants in 

Warren and Sterling 

Heights, Michigan, while 

Ford reduced operations at 

two transmission factories 

and a plant that stamps 

parts for the hot-selling Ford 

Ranger small pickup near 

Detroit. Ranger production 

was unaffected. 

General Motors was hit 

much harder, suspending 

operations at factories in 

Flint, Lansing, Saginaw, 

Pontiac, Orion Township 

and Bay City, Michigan. A 

Flint plant is gearing up for 

the launch of new heavyduty 

pickup trucks. Even 

General Motors' sprawling 

technical center in Warren, 

Michigan, north of Detroit, 

was closed and its roughly 

20,000 employees were told 

to stay home. 

Trump, Pelosi stances on wall 

suggest deal will be difficult 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared 

Thursday that there'll be no "wall money" 

in any compromise border security deal as 

she and President Donald Trump signaled 

that congressional negotiators may never 

satisfy his demands for his cherished 

Southwest border proposal, reports UNB. 

Trump, who in recent weeks has 

expressed indifference to whether the term 

"wall" or something else is used, clung with 

renewed tenacity to the word that became 

his campaign mantra, declaring, "A wall is 

a wall." Yet in a series of tweets and 

statements, he issued conflicting messages 

about what he'd need to declare victory and 

suggested that merely repairing existing 

structures along the boundary could be a 

major component of a triumph. 

Amid signs that Trump's leverage in 

Congress is atrophying, he seemed to aim 

one tweet at his conservative followers. He 

wrote that Democrats "are not going to give 

money to build the DESPERATELY 

needed WALL. I've got you covered. Wall is 

already being built, I don't expect much 

help!" 

Pelosi, D-Calif., left the door open for an 

accord that could finance some barriers, 

citing what she said was already existing 

"Normandy fencing" that blocks vehicles. 

"If the president wants to call that a wall, 

he can call that a wall," she told reporters. 

She added: "Is there a place for enhanced 

fencing? Normandy fencing would work." 

Chinese President Xi Jinping 

on Thursday congratulated 

Sultan Abdullah Sultan 

Ahmad Shah on assumption 

of duties as Malaysia's 16th 

supreme head of state, 

reports UNB. 

In his congratulatory 

message to Abdullah, Xi said 

that China and Malaysia are 

traditional friendly 

neighbors and important 

cooperation partners, adding 

that he attaches great 

importance to the 

development of bilateral 

relations. 

Noting that this year 

marks the 45th anniversary 

of diplomatic ties between 

the two countries, Xi said 

China is willing to work 

together with Malaysia to 

enhance mutual political 

trust, expand pragmatic 

cooperation, and deepen 

their comprehensive 

strategic partnership, so as 

to better benefit the two 

countries and peoples. 

Abudallah was sworn in as 

Malaysia's 16th king on 

Thursday. Chinese President 

Xi Jinping on Thursday 

congratulated Sultan 

Abdullah Sultan Ahmad 

Shah on assumption of 

duties as Malaysia's 16th 

supreme head of state, 

reports UNB. 

In his congratulatory 

message to Abdullah, Xi said 

that China and Malaysia are 

traditional friendly 

Yet Pelosi's other remark - "There's not 

going to be any wall money in the 

legislation" - underscored the linguistic 

battle underway. It also showed that 

Democrats see no reason to let Trump 

claim a win in a cause that stirs his hardright 

voters and enrages liberals. 

Trump's political muscle weakened 

following Democrats' capture of House 

control in the November election. It waned 

further after his surrender last week in 

ending a record 35-day partial government 

shutdown without getting a penny of the 

$5.7 billion he'd demanded to start 

building the wall. 

In another sign of his flagging hold over 

lawmakers, the GOP-controlled Senate 

backed legislation on a 68-23 vote 

Thursday that opposes withdrawal of U.S. 

troops from Syria and Afghanistan. 

When Trump folded on the shutdown, he 

agreed to reopen government until Feb. 15, 

giving lawmakers more time to craft a 

bipartisan border security compromise. 

If there's no deal by then, Trump has 

threatened to revive the shutdown or 

declare a national emergency, which he 

claims would let him shift billions from 

unrelated military construction projects to 

erecting his wall. He criticized Democrats' 

negotiating stance so far, telling reporters 

in the Oval Office that Pelosi is "just playing 

games" and saying GOP bargainers are 

"wasting their time." 

Xi congratulates Abdullah on 

taking office as Malaysia's 

supreme head of state 

neighbors and important 

cooperation partners, 

adding that he attaches great 

importance to the 

development of bilateral 

relations. 

Noting that this year 

marks the 45th anniversary 

of diplomatic ties between 

the two countries, Xi said 

China is willing to work 

together with Malaysia to 

enhance mutual political 

trust, expand pragmatic 

cooperation, and deepen 

their comprehensive 

strategic partnership, so as 

to better benefit the two 

countries and peoples. 

Abudallah was sworn in as 

Malaysia's 16th king on 

Thursday. 

GD-186/19 (15 x 4) GD-187/19 (9 x 4)

UNITING PEOPLE EVERYDAY 

SATURDAy, DhAkA, FEBRUARy 2, 2019, MAgh 20, 1425 BS, JAMADiUl AWAl 26, 1440 hiJRi 

A joyful rally was brought out from National Press Club on Friday marking World Read Aloud Day in 

the capital . 


SSC examinee 

found murdered 

in Munshiganj, 

2 held 

MUNSHIGANJ : The 

body of a Secondary School 

Certificate (SSC) examinee 

was recovered from 

Kumarbhog area of Padma 

Bridge Rehabilitation 

Centre in Lohajang upazila 

on Friday, reports UNB. 

The deceased, 16-yearold 

Nirab, was a student of 

Anwar Ali High School and 

the son of Nayeem Khan of 

the area. He had been missing 

since going out of his 

with his friends Rabbi and 

Alal. 

Locals spotted the body 

in the morning and 

informed police. It was sent 

to Munshiganj General 

Hospital for autopsy, said 

Monir Hossain, officer-incharge 

of Lohajang Police 

Station. 

A police complaint was 

filed on Thursday night 

soon after Nirab had gone 

missing. Police detained 

Rabbi and Alal the same 

night. 

OC Monir said they suspected 

the murder could be 

related to love affairs 

INTERESTING NEWS 

The United Kingdom Post Office introduced 

the first public telephone kiosk, designated 

K1, in 1921. These were constructed 

out of pre-cast concrete sections, had a 

four-sided rectangular form with a pyramidal 

roof, and was topped by a wrought iron 

spear. It was not a particularly bad design, 

but somehow, it didn’t appeal to the British 

public. The London Metropolitan 

Boroughs as well as the Birmingham Civic 

Society voiced their dislike and even resisted 

the Post Office’s effort to erect K1 kiosks 

on the streets. To ease the tension, the 

Royal Fine Art Commission intervened and 

offered to organize a competition to design 

a new kiosk. 

The organizers invited entries from three 

respected architects—Robert Lorimer, 

John Burnet and Giles Gilbert Scott, along 

Bagerhat special people 

out of work; no training 

for seven years 

BAGERHAT : Physicallychallenged 

people in 

Bagerhat have been passing 

days in hardship with their 

fundamental needs remaining 

unmet as the Bagerhat 

Rural Rehabilitation Centre 

remained closed for seven 

years, reports UNB. 

Admission to the centre has 

been suspended due to the 

dilapidated condition of its 

building. Without jobs available, 

the physically-challenged 

people in the region 

have been facing difficulties to 

earn for and manage their 

families. 

According to officials, the 

government set up the centre 

with three buildings and three 

tin-shed houses on 3.59 acres 

of land at Mulghar village in 

Fakirhat upazila in the 1981- 

82 fiscal year with a view to 

turning disabled people into 

skilled manpower. 

But, the admission of disabled 

persons to the centre 

remained suspended since 

September 2012 due to the 

shabby conditions of the 

buildings and accommodation 

crisis. 

The training activities at the 

centre started in 1987. All 

male disabled people, aged 

14-24, could avail of the 

chance to get admitted here 

except the blind ones. There 

were three trades-mechanical 

workshop, tailoring, and cattle 

and poultry farming - for 

which training was provided. 

Required qualification for 

training in the first two trades 

was class five but no specific 

educational requirement was 

needed for training on cattle 

and poultry farming. 

Officials at the Department 

of Social Services of Bagerhat 

said 30 people in three trades 

- 10 in each trade-were 

trained a year at government 

expenses. The government 

bore all their expenditures, 

including accommodation, 

dress, treatment facilities, 

sports and others. After their 

The Tomb That Inspired Britain's 

Iconic Telephone Box 

with the designs from the Post Office and 

from The Birmingham Civic Society. 

Robert Lorimer was a Scottish architect 

who designed the Scottish National War 

Memorial at Edinburgh Castle. John 

Burnet—another Scott—designed many 

prestigious buildings across Britain. Giles 

Gilbert Scott was a well-known English 

architect who gave Britain many of its popular 

landmarks such as Cambridge 

University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, 

and the Battersea Power Station. His most 

popular creation was the ubiquitous red 

telephone box. 

Scott designed a four-sided rectangular 

box with a domed roof. Each side had 

fluted architrave moldings at the outer 

edge, and at the base there was a blank 

rectangular panel with trim molding-surround. 

training, they were supposed 

to receive Tk 4,000 each as 

rehabilitation allowance. 

Sources said 37 people 

trained by the centre still did 

not get their rehabilitation 

allowance. 

Abdus Sattar, a trainer of 

Mechanical Trade 

Department of the centre, 

said the building condition of 

the centre is not good enough 

to live in there. Its training 

programme will resume if the 

residential building can be 

rebuilt or a tin-shed building 

can be constructed. Four staff, 

out of 11, are now working at 

this centre, while two are 

working elsewhere, Sattar 

said. 

Sheikh Khalil Al Rashid, an 

assistant director of 

Department of Social Services 

of Bagerhat who is now in 

charge of the rural rehabilitation 

centre, said the authorities 

have decided to abandon 

the residential building as it 

has become risky for living. 

Bangladesh sues 

Philippines' 

bank RCBC over 

BB cyber heist 

DHAKA : Bangladesh filed a 

case against Rizal Commercial 

Banking Corporation (RCBC) 

of the Philippines' over the 

heist of $81 million from 

Bangladesh Bank's account 

with the Federal Reserve Bank 

of New York, reports UNB. 

The case was filed with a 

New York bank accusing 

RCBC, casinos and others 

involved in the heist, Abu 

Hena Mohammed Raji Hasan, 

head of Bangladesh Finance 

Intelligence Unit (BIFU) of the 

Bangladesh Bank told UNB. 

He said there will be a press 

briefing here on Sunday over 

the filing of the case. 

International robbers stole 

$101 million from the 

Bangladesh Bank account 

with the Federal Reserve Bank 

through fraudulent instructions 

against their target of 

about $1 billion in February 

2016. 

Although, some $20 million 

was recovered from a Sri 

Lankan bank, $81 million, 

which landed in Manila-based 

RCBC, could not be recovered. 

Most of the money transferred 

to the Philippines went 

to four personal accounts, held 

by individuals. 

The Federal Reserve Bank 

blocked the remaining 30 

transactions, amounting to 

$850 million, due to suspicions 

raised by a misspelled 

instruction. 

Cosmos Foundation 

Dialogue on 

Bangladesh-EU 

relations 

DHAKA : A distinguished 

panel of experts is set to 

come together at a symposium 

in the city on Saturday 

to assess the 'Bangladesh- 

European Union relations in 

the present context and identify 

the challenges and 

opportunities for the future, 

reports UNB. 

Cosmos Foundation, the 

philanthropic arm of 

Cosmos Group, will organise 

the symposium titled 

'Bangladesh-European 

Union Relations: Prognosis 

for the Future' at Six Seasons 

Hotel. 

Rensje Teerink, 

Ambassador of the 

European Union to 

Bangladesh, will present the 

keynote paper at the dialogue. 

Md Shahidul Haque, 

Senior Secretary, Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs of 

Bangladesh, will attend the 

event as the chief guest while 

Chairman of Cosmos 

Foundation Enayetullah 

Khan will deliver the welcome 

speech. 

The session will be chaired 

by Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed 

Chowdhury, the Principal 

Research Fellow at the 

Institute of South Asian 

Studies, National University 

of Singapore, and former 

Foreign Affairs Adviser to 

Bangladesh's previous caretaker 

government. 

Manpower shortage 

hits railway services, 

expansion plan 

DHAKA : The long-drawn 

manpower crisis in 

Bangladesh Railway, the 

largest public transport sector, 

is not only hampering 

its services but also the government 

plan to split it into 

four zones as part of its 

move to bring the whole 

country under the railway 

network, reports UNB. 

Bangladesh Railway is facing 

many difficulties in providing 

expected services to 

its passengers with its existing 

manpower of 40,275. 

A number of railways stations 

across the country are 

facing closure due to manpower 

shortage, said officials 

at Bangladesh Railway, 

sources at Bangladesh 

Railway said. 

They said even the government 

plan to split 

Bangladesh Railway into 

four zones to bring the 

whole country under railway 

network saw little 

progress for the same reason 

since the Prime 

Minister's directive in this 

regard in 2014. 

According to the 

Bangladesh Railway, there 

are 2,877 kilometers of railway 

network across the 

country and it will be 

expanded to 4,700 kilometers 

under a master plan of 

the government. "But, it's 

impossible for the 

Bangladesh Railway to deal 

with the increased routes 

with the existing manpower," 

said an official wishing 

anonymity. 

On October 23,2014, 

Prime Minister Sheikh 

Hasina asked the Railways 

Ministry to reform the railway. 

Following the PM's directive, 

the Railways Ministry 

constituted a committee 

with its Additional Secretary 

Kamal Krinsha as its convener 

to split the railway 

into four zones. 

The committee recommended 

forming the East 

Zone with Chittagong and 

Sylhet divisions while the 

West Zone with Pakshi and 

Lalmonirhat, North with 

Dhaka and Mymensingh 

divisions and the South 

Zone with Rajbari district 

and Khulna division. Each 

zone will be divided into 

two divisions under the 

plan. 

But the move remained 

stuck for the last four years 

as no decision has been 

taken yet over the additional 

manpower to run the new 

zones and divisions. 

Currently, Bangladesh 

Railway has been operating 

its services under two zones- 

East (Chattogram, Dhaka, 

Pakshi, Lalmonirhat) and 

West (Sylhet, Mymensing, 

Rajbari and Khulna) zones. 

In December last year, the 

consultation firm concerned 

submitted a report to the 

Bangladesh Railway with 

the demand of 57,000 manpower 

for the proposed new 

zones against the actual 

demand of 68,000 people. 

The final proposal over 

splitting Bangladesh 

Railway into four zones 

could not yet be sent to the 

Public Administration 

Ministry due to the faulty 

proposal over the manpower 

structure, 

Besides, the operation of 

Chapainawabganj-Amnua 

bypass Railways Station has 

been suspended due to 

manpower crisis. 

Contacted, Railways 

Minister Nurul Islam Sujon 

said the process for splitting 

Bangladesh Railway into 

four zones is underway and 

effective measures will be 

taken soon to this end. 

He also stresses the need 

for ending manpower crisis 

to ensure better services to 

the passengers. 

On Thursday RAB-1 arrested 4 members of Ansarullah Bangla Team through a drive at Uttara. 


JOF hails PM for invitation, explains 

why it can't join 

tea party 

DHAKA : Hailing Prime Minister Sheikh 

Hasina for inviting its leaders to her tea party, 

Jatiya Oikyafront on Friday sent a letter to 

Ganobhaban explaining the reason behind its 

decision not to join it on Saturday, reports UNB. 

A three-member delegation of the alliance went 

to Ganobhaban carrying the letter in the morning, 

Oikyafront's office chief Jahangir Alam 

Mintu told UNB. 

He said the Prime Minister's protocol officer-2 

Khorshed Alam received the letter which was 

signed by Oikyafront steering committee member 

Subrata Chowdhury. 

"We thank you for inviting us to exchange 

greetings over tea at Ganobhaban on February 2. 

The issue of the honourable Prime Minister's tea 

party was discussed as one of the agenda at 

Thursday meeting of the Jatiya Oikyafront steering 

committee," the letter reads. 

It also says the steering committee unanimously 

decided not to take part in the tea party. 

"The government formed through a farce in the 

name of an election on December 30 is in no way 

a moral one. People's minimum democratic 

rights and their authority to elect representatives 

through exercising their voting rights were 

snatched on that day," the letter says. 

Besides, it says, Oikyafront's several thousand 

leaders and activists have been in jail while many 

leaders and activists of the alliance are still being 

arrested in new cases. "Under the circumstances, 

it's not possible in any way to join the Prime 

Minister's tea party," the letter adds. 

On January 26, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina 

invited Jatiya Oikyafront senior leaders to 

exchange greetings at Ganobhaban over tea on 

February 2. 

Jatiya Oikyafront top leaders, led by Dr Kamal 

Hossain, sat twice with the Prime Minister on 

November 1 and November 7 last at Ganobhaban 

before the 11th parliamentary elections. 

Oikyafront was formed on November 13 comprising 

BNP, Gono Forum, JSD (ROB) and 

Nagorik Oikya. Later, Abdul Kader Siddique-led 

Krishak Sramik Janata League also joined the 

alliance. Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, 

formed the government for the third consecutive 

term following its landslide victory in the 

December-30 election. 

Turning down the election results bringing the 

allegation of 'massive vote robbery', Oikyafront 

demanded reelection. 

4 'ABT 

members' 

held in 

city 

DHAKA : 

Members of 

Rapid Action 

Battalion (Rab) 

arrested four 

members of 

banned militant 

outfit Ansarullah 

Bangla Team 

(ABT) from different 

parts of the 

city early Friday, 

reports UNB. 

Tipped off, a 

team of Rab-1 

conducted drive 

in different parts 

of the city and 

arrested them, 

said Assistant 

director of Rab-1 

senior ASP 

M i z a n u r 

Rahman. 

The arrestees 

were involved in a 

plot to kill some 

renowned personalities 

and 

online activists. 

Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam, Advisory Editor: Advocate Molla Mohammad Abu Kawser, Managing, Editor: Tapash Ray Sarker, News Editor : Saiful Islam, printed at Sonali Printing Press, 2/1/A, Arambagh 167, Inner Circular Road, Eden Complex, Motijheel, Dhaka. 

Editorial and News Office: K.K Bhaban (Level-04) 69/K, Green Road, Panthapath, Dhaka-1205. Tel : +8802-9611884, Cell : 01832166882; Email: Editor : editor@thebangladeshtoday.com, Advertisement: ads@thebangladeshtoday.com, News: newsbangla@thebangladeshtoday.com, contact@thebangladeshtoday.com, website: www.thebangladeshtoday.com

02-02-2019

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