Govt’s popularity nose-diving: NAP’s ‘grand rally’

The leaders of the National Awami Party’s faction led by Mozaffar Ahmed, a partner of the Awami League-led alliance, on Monday said that the country is facing serious political crisis and the AL-led government has failed to meet the aspirations of the common people.
Senior leftist leader and president of the party, Mozaffar Ahmed, said at a grand rally of the party in Muktangan that the common people of the country are finding it almost impossible to maintain their families because of the price hikes of essential commodities.
The government has failed to control the prices of essential commodities, to solve the nagging problem of the acute shortage of power and water, and to stop criminalisation, extortion and tender manipulation by the AL activists, said Mozaffar.
As a result the popularity of the AL-led government has started nose-diving throughout the country, he opined.
In our country the gap between the poor and the rich is increasing day by day and the poor are becoming poorer and the rich are getting richer, said NAP’s president.
He called on the ruling AL to do the politics of principle and said that politics without principles cannot solve any of the country’s numerous problems.
Mozaffar said that the people are becoming frustrated at the role of both the ruling party and the opposition.
He called on both the ruling and opposition parties to make the Parliament the focal point of discussion, and to discuss the issues of gas, coal and transit to India in the Parliament.
NAP would continue its struggle for establishing the rights of the poor people, said Mozaffar.
The USA is pressuring the government to let foreigners use the natural resources of the country, so the government must decide whether it will work to safeguard the national interest or be exploited by the imperialists.
The rally, chaired by Mozaffar Ahmed, was addressed by the party’s general secretary Enamul Haque, presidium members Amena Ahmed and Lutfar Rahman, central leaders Abdur Rashid Sarkar and Paritosh Debnath, along with others.
Hasanul Haq Inu, president of a faction of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Pankaj Bhattacharya, presidium member of the Gana Forum, Bimal Biswas, member of the Workers Party’s politburo, and the joint convener of the Communist Kendra also addressed the rally.
Several hundred party leaders and activists from across the country took part in the grand rally.
-New Age

Transit to India cannot benefit Bangladesh: Jamiruddin Sircar

Former speaker and opposition BNP lawmaker Jamiruddin Sircar said on Monday that Bangladesh would in no way gain out f transit given to India.
He said that the Awami League government gave transit to India to link its regions through Bangladesh territory disregarding opinion of the people in the country.
Speaking at a discussion at the National Press Club Jamiruddin Sircar, also a standing committee member of the party said that a section of the intellectuals and some foreign envoys jointly brought one eleven for which democracy in Bangladesh has gone back by 20 years.
‘One eleven was unnecessary,’ he said.
The discussion on ‘The Conspiracy from 1/11 to Now: Tarique Rahman and future politics in Bangladesh’ was hosted by Swadhinata Forum at the Press Club to mark the 46th birthday of BNP senior joint-secretary general Tarique Rahman.
Sircar said that the Awami League led government was giving all jobs seeing their political background.
He said that the late president Ziaur Rahman and BNP established rule of law in Bangladesh and ‘impersonal functioning of the state.’
He urged party men and all those who love Zia and Tarique to counter all propaganda against them and the BNP.
Another BNP standing committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy described one-eleven as ‘a stain on national politics.’
He criticised the role of the one-eyed civil society leaders during the two-year rule of the military backed emergency caretaker government.
He called for ‘strong unity’ of the nationalist forces to foil all anti Bangladesh conspiracies.
BNP senior joint secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir debunked an international conspiracy out to depict the past four-party alliance government as ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘communal’.
He said that the Awmi League led government ‘is giving transit to India but what about the ‘water’ issue.’
He said if any Indian bus or truck goes through Bangladesh, India would have to allow similar facilities to Bangladesh to go to China and Nepal.
Chaired by the Forum president Abu Naser Muhammad Rahmatullah, the session was addressed, amongst others, by BNP chairperson’s advisor AZM Zahid Hossain and Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal president Shirin Sultana.
-New Age

BNP calls hartal for November 30

The main opposition BNP on Monday called countrywide dawn-to-dusk general strike for November 30.

 

Earlier on November 14, it enforced a nationwide daylong hartal protesting the ‘eviction’ of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia from her disputed house in the Dhaka Cantonment.
BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain announced the programme emerging from the meeting of its national standing committee at the party's Gulshan office.
The main opposition BNP at about 8:30 in the evening started the meeting of its highest policy-making body for the second consecutive day with its Chairperson Khaleda Zia in the chair.
The committee on Sunday adjourned the meeting till Monday evening.
On the first of the meeting, the body expelled BNP vice-chairman barrister Nazmul Huda from the party.
-Daily Star

Dhaka, Delhi to sign protocol soon to conserve Royal Bengal Tigers

Bangladesh and India will sign a protocol very soon to conserve the endangered species of Royal Bengal Tiger.
State Minister for Environment and Forests Dr Hasan Mahmud yesterday said this while speaking as the chair of the plenary session of the Tiger Summit being held at Saint Petersburg in Russia.
The draft of the protocol has already been prepared and it will be finilised very soon, Dr Hasan said.
Heads of the governments and environment ministers from 13 tiger range countries including Bangladesh, China, Russia, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and Indonesia are taking part in the four-day summit.
Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina will speak in the high segment of the summit.
Dr Hasan called for stronger collaboration among the tiger range countries to conserve the habitats of the wild cats to double their population by 2022.
Terming the habitats of the tigers as the haven of the bio-diversity, Dr Hasan said, “We have to identify the tigers' habitats and take all efforts for their protection”.
Eco-tourism could be promoted through conservation of tigers and involving local people with the initiative, he said adding that all habitats of tigers must be brought under close vigilance so that none can take the tiger killing as a leisure pursuit.
Dr Hasan also urged for strong collaboration among Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Interpol and other international agencies to stop illegal trafficking of tigers, their skin and body parts.
The state minister highlighted the initiatives undertaken by Bangladesh for conservation of tigers and said the government is implementing a nine year Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan in this regard.
Besides, he said the government with the support of Global Tiger Initiative has prepared a National Tiger Recovery Programme (NTRP) to increase the population of tiger.
He said Bangladesh Forest Department and Wildlife Trust of Bangladesh are jointly working to reduce the tiger human conflict in the villages around the Sundarbans, a habitat of Royal Bengal Tiger.
-Daily Star

TSA head sorry for pat-down causing urine spill

ROMULUS, Mich. – A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan says the head of the Transportation Security Administration called to apologize for an airport pat-down that caused a bag of the traveler's urine to soak his clothes.
Sixty-one-year-old retired special education teacher Tom Sawyer says the rough pat-down happened before he caught a flight to Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 7.
The Houghton Lake man tells MSNBC.com that the experience left him "absolutely humiliated."
Sawyer tells the Detroit Free Press that TSA chief John Pistole called him Monday and "apologized on behalf of the TSA."
Sawyer says he accepted Pistole's apology. The newspaper says it couldn't immediately reach the agency for comment.
Earlier, Pistole said on CBS' "The Early Show" that he's concerned about people such as Sawyer who've had uncomfortable experiences with agents.

Feds OK 2nd human study of embryonic stem cells

NEW YORK – For only the second time, the U.S. government has approved a test in people of a treatment using embryonic stem cells — this time for a rare disease that causes serious vision loss.

Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company based in Santa Monica., Calif., said the research should begin early next year, following the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Just last month another biotech company, Geron Corp., said it had begun preliminary testing in people for treating spinal cord injuries by injecting cells derived from embryonic stem cells.

Scientists hope to use stem cells to create a variety of tissues for transplant. But human embryos have to be destroyed to harvest those cells, which has made their use controversial.

ACT's experiment will focus on Stargardt disease, which affects only about 30,000 Americans. But the company hopes the same approach will work for similar and more common eye disorders like age-related macular degeneration, which affects millions.

Stargardt is an inherited disorder that attacks central vision used for tasks like reading and recognizing faces. Some patients go totally blind, even losing peripheral vision, while others are severely impaired and can only perceive light or see their hands moving in front of their faces.

The disease typically starts in adolescence. The key problem is that impaired scavenger cells fail to remove toxic byproducts from the eye, allowing them to build up and kill other cells. There is no proven treatment.

In the new study, 12 patients will be treated with healthy scavenger cells, created in a laboratory from human embryonic stem cells. This early phase of the research is primarily to test the safety of various doses, injecting only one eye of each patient.

"We're also hoping to see some improvement in visual acuity, but that's a bonus," said Dr. Robert Lanza, ACT's chief scientific officer.

The research will be performed at medical centers in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Oregon, ACT said.

Stephen Rose, chief research officer of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, said his group is "very, very glad" that ACT has permission to begin the study.

Searchers seek gunman in Utah ranger shooting

MOAB, Utah – Searchers combed the rugged red rock terrain near Moab for a third day Monday in their hunt for a possibly armed and dangerous man they believe was involved in the shooting of a Utah park ranger.

The target of their manhunt was Lance Leeroy Arellano, 40, who officials believe may be wounded and in need of medical help after the shootout late Friday. Authorities have recovered a rifle, backpack and a tattered, bloody T-shirt while searching for Arellano over the weekend in a canyon along the Colorado River.

The ranger, Brody Young, 34, suffered injuries to an arm, leg and his stomach area, and underwent surgery over the weekend, Grand County Sheriff Jim Nyland said. A spokeswoman for St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., said Monday that Young is listed in serious condition.

The shootout occurred after Young stopped a vehicle near the Poison Spider Mesa Trail southwest of Moab near the Colorado River. The scenic trail, among Utah's best-known biking runs, rises more than 1,000 feet into the surrounding countryside.

Authorities have not yet been able to interview Young, and it remained unclear what sparked the violence.

More than 160 law enforcement officers spent the weekend searching a 15-square mile area near eastern Utah's Dead Horse State Park. Nyland has said the area's rugged terrain likely has given Arellano the "upper hand" in avoiding capture.

"He pretty much knows where we are at all times because of the number of people we have," Nyland said at a press conference.

Authorities have confiscated and searched Arellano's 1999 silver Pontiac Grand Am, which was found parked in the brush several miles south of the shooting site.

Nyland said he thinks Arellano is still in the contained search area and "there's not any possible way for him to leave the area without us knowing."

"We consider this individual armed and dangerous. As we're tracking him we have to keep that in mind — the security of the trackers — and we're having to move pretty slow," Nyland said. Arellano has a criminal history that includes assault and drug charges.

The shooting comes in the wake of the killing earlier this month of a 31-year-old game warden in Pennsylvania who was shot while trying to apprehending an armed poacher.

LA County coroner aims to revive gift shop sales

LOS ANGELES – The morgue is about the last place you would think of to go shopping, so it's perhaps unsurprising that sales at Los Angeles County's coroner gift store are next to dead.

Tucked as unobtrusively as possible in a closed-door room off the coroner's lobby, the store is jam-packed with mortality-mocking merchandise: Water bottles marked "bodily fluids," boxer shorts dubbed "undertakers," toe tags, crime-scene tape and beach towels bearing the county coroner's trademarked symbol of a body outline.

Trouble is, few people know about the tongue-in-cheek store and its related website, "Skeletons in a Closet." The shop's biggest customers? No shock here — homicide detectives.

"Most people know it through word-of-mouth," said Craig Harvey, the department's chief of operations. "But we are mentioned in guidebooks and we get tourists."

County auditors, however, say given the unique nature of the trinkets — the department is believed to be the nation's only coroner with a trademarked merchandise line — the 17-year-old business could be a robust moneymaker if infused with marketing lifeblood.

They recommend the coroner hire an outside firm with an eye to marketing the merchandise in high-traffic tourist areas, such as Hollywood Boulevard and Los Angeles International Airport.

Harvey is first to admit the merchandise has potential. It just hasn't been a priority for a department that prides itself as one of the top forensic science units in the country, as well as the busiest.

"There is a mystique about the LA County coroner, something people identify with. People want to know what we do and how we do it," Harvey said. "We can do government services very well, but business is another thing."

A management audit released earlier this year found the store's losses totaled $270,000 from 2003 to 2008, and was in effect being subsidized through surplus funds from a drunken driving educational program.

Noting that retailing is not part of a coroner's mission, Harvey said the department is open to expanding the operation but is awaiting a forthcoming fiscal review from the county controller-auditor to develop a plan.

At one point, the department contracted a company to market the items in Japan, but the project was dead soon after arrival — with little consumer interest, Harvey said. The department hasn't sought new ventures since.

Still, the marketing opportunity is clearly there, given the department's unrivaled profile in a largely unheralded field.

Over the decades, some of the world's most captivating morbid mysteries have played out under the prying scalpels of Los Angeles pathologists.

There are the deaths of the famous such as Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean; killings that led to charges against the famous such as O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake and Phil Spector; and the victims whose killers became famous such as the Menendez brothers, Charles Manson, and the victim herself, the Black Dahlia.

Numerous TV shows have added to the cachet, including the long-running 1976-83 drama "Quincy M.E.," in which Jack Klugman played a curmudgeonly crime-solving coroner, and the more recent documentary-style "North Mission Road," named for the department's street location.

"There's a definite interest in this," said Scott Michaels, who owns Dearly Departed Tours, which offers tours of LA's celebrated death landmarks. "Every other store along Hollywood Boulevard has LAPD and LAFD T-shirts. The LA coroner would be a natural."

The store has always been somewhat of a barebones operation. It evolved from a few coffee mugs and T-shirts the department had printed up to use as giveaways at conferences. Then people started requesting them and the department opened a small shop in a supply closet in 1993.

A following developed for the items that poke fun at death — there's nothing gory or bloody — and it landed in tourist guidebooks as a stop for unique souvenirs.

Tour buses stop there and tourists do seek it out. However, the shop's success has been limited by its location on the eastside of downtown Los Angeles amid a grimy strip of auto-glass businesses. The shop lacks a sign outside the coroner's office, a red-brick, century-old former hospital.

It makes for a lot of lonely hours for store manager Edna Pereyda, who had no customers during a recent visit.

The department has deliberately downplayed the store, mindful that most people who seek out the coroner's department are bereaved relatives. "They're really not in the mood for this stuff," Harvey said.

After a 2002 audit noted the store lost $100,000 in 2000-01, the department tightened up operations considerably with better inventory and cash controls, and limits on officials' using merchandise as gifts. The audit noted that officials gave away $2,600 worth of stuff over a four-month period.

In 2008, losses narrowed to about $55,000 on the $175,000 per year operation.

Marketing experts said the merchandise would likely be popular, although it could perhaps reinforce foreigners' perception of American cities as breeding-grounds for violence.

"It is part of the makeup of people's view of large cities in America," said Bill Baker, author of "Destination Branding for Small Cities." "But if this is more of a humorous thing, it could be a 'I survived it' sort of mentality. It'll possibly sell well."

Police eye death of boy who fell at Staples Center

LOS ANGELES – The family of a 2-year-old boy was posing for pictures in a luxury suite high inside Staples Center when he managed to scale a clear safety barrier and fell about 30 feet to his death, police said on Monday.


Lucas Anthony Tang suffered head injuries Sunday when he landed on rows of seats minutes after the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors 117-89, police said. The boy later died at a hospital.

"Somehow the child went over the edge of the section," Officer Julie Sohn said.

Police were releasing few details about the incident as they tried to determine what happened.

Sohn said the boy's family was taking photographs at the time of the fall.

The Los Angeles Times, citing unidentified police sources, said the toddler's family was looking at digital photographs and lost track of him. He somehow got over the top of the glass barrier, the newspaper reported.

Sohn, however, said she could not confirm those details.

The luxury boxes have tiers of seats, fronted by concrete walls. Atop the walls are glass barriers. The barrier varies in height but at its lowest point is about the height of an adult's waist, said Michael Roth, a spokesman for Staples and owner, AEG.

Roth said the toddler fell into a general seating area about 30 rows up from the court.

Initial estimates put the child's fall at about 50 feet, but Roth later said the third tier of boxes is three stories up, or about 30 feet.

Witnesses said the boy was moving his arms, legs and head when paramedics put him in an ambulance, Roth said.

The 950,000-square-foot stadium opened in 1999 and has 160 luxury suites on three levels.

"In 11 years, we've never had an incident like this," he said.

The building is in compliance with city codes, Department of Building and Safety spokesman David Lara said.

Building regulations require guardrails that are at least 26 inches high in front of seats, he said. Guardrails in front of stairs must be 42 inches high.

The police department's juvenile division, which has investigative responsibility when a victim is under age 11, was handling the probe. "It's procedural" and did not necessarily indicate that a crime was involved, Sohn said.

The arena was conducting its own investigation, Roth said.

Roth declined to release details about the boy's family but said the luxury box — as with most suites — probably was owned by a corporation.

"Our condolences and prayers go to the Tang family," Roth said a short prepared statement.

The Lakers organization issued a statement expressing shock and sadness at the tragedy.

"To go from a moment of happiness and enjoyment, to the loss of this boy's life, is tragic and heartbreaking. We would like to ask Lakers fans to join us in keeping Lucas and his family in our thoughts and prayers," the statement said.

Roth said Monday night's game between the Los Angeles Clippers and New Orleans Hornets would go on as scheduled.

The arena is home to the NBA's Lakers and Clippers, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

Adjacent to the popular LA Live entertainment complex, Staples is also one of the city's major venues for concerts and special events such as the Grammy Awards.

DeLay jurors weigh mostly circumstantial evidence

AUSTIN, Texas – Prosecutors in ex-U.S. House majority leader Tom DeLay's money laundering trial made a final pitch to jurors Monday to connect the dots among the mounds of circumstantial evidence and find him guilty.
DeLay's attorneys said prosecutors needed jurors to infer DeLay's guilt because they'd presented no proof the ex-lawmaker committed a crime.
Jurors deliberated for about four hours after closing arguments without reaching a verdict. They will resume their deliberations Tuesday.
They sent several questions Monday to Senior Judge Pat Priest, including a request for clarification on the definition of money laundering. Priest told jurors he would answer their questions about money laundering on Tuesday.
Prosecutors had focused on summarizing the volumes of e-mails and other documents they presented during DeLay's three-week trial in an effort to prove DeLay used his political action committee to illegally channel $190,000 in corporate money into 2002 Texas legislative races through a money swap.
DeLay, a once powerful but polarizing Houston-area congressman, has denied wrongdoing. The Republican is charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors Gary Cobb and Beverly Mathews said the circumstantial evidence in the case, when put together, showed DeLay took part in a scheme with two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, to get corporate money to seven Texas House candidates. Under Texas law, corporate donations can't go directly to political campaigns.
"What was Tom DeLay's motive to do this? His motive was redistricting, pure and simple," Mathews said.
Prosecutors claim the corporate money helped Republicans elect candidates and take control of the Texas House. That enabled the GOP majority to push through a Delay-engineered congressional redistricting plan that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004 — and strengthened DeLay's political power.
Prosecutors say the corporate money was laundered through an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee, or RNC. The money was exchanged for the same amount in individual donations, which can be used in Texas campaigns.
"You can logically infer anything from the evidence. That is what circumstantial evidence is. You don't have to have an eyewitness to figure out what went on here," Mathews said.
But Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lead attorney, restated what he had often said throughout the trial: that prosecutors had failed to prove the ex-lawmaker committed a crime and the money swap was legal.
Throughout his closing arguments, DeGuerin repeated one phrase in particular: no corporate money went to candidates in Texas. He even included the sentence — in bold, black letters — in a slide show he presented to jurors.
DeGuerin argued DeLay was being punished for his political views and that prosecutors tried to "make politics dirty." Trial testimony from prosecution witnesses often focused on how money is raised in political campaigns, particularly from corporations.
"I don't agree with tearing down someone because of what their beliefs are," DeGuerin said.
The case had been originally brought by a Democratic district attorney who is now retired.
The strongest evidence prosecutors presented was an audio interview in which DeLay said he knew beforehand about the money swap. DeLay says he misspoke in the interview with prosecutors in 2005, just before his indictment.
DeLay has said Ellis told him about the money swap on Oct. 2, 2002, after it had been approved. At trial, prosecutors focused on a Sept. 11, 2002, meeting Ellis had at DeLay's Washington office. Prosecutors told jurors that an hour before Ellis was in DeLay's office that day, he received a blank check from the PAC's accountant in Austin. That check was later sent to the RNC and filled out for $190,000. Two former DeLay staff members testified DeLay would have been too busy to be at the Sept. 11 meeting.
During closing arguments, both prosecutors and defense attorneys played excerpts from the audio interview. Prosecutors said it proved in DeLay's own words that he knew about the money swap before it happened. DeGuerin argued it proved DeLay didn't propose the transaction and had little if any involvement in how the PAC was run.
Prosecutors presented more than 30 witnesses during the trial that started Nov. 1. In contrast, only five witnesses took the stand in DeLay's defense.
At trial, prosecutors also presented records showing the seven Texas candidates got more donations from the RNC than all other state legislative candidates around the U.S.
The criminal charges in Texas, as well as a separate federal investigation of DeLay's ties to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, ended his 22-year political career representing suburban Houston. The Justice Department probe into DeLay's ties to Abramoff ended without any charges filed against DeLay.
Ellis and Colyandro, who face lesser charges, will be tried later.
DeLay, whose nickname was "the Hammer" for his heavy-handed style, runs a consulting firm based in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land. In 2009, he appeared on ABC's hit television show "Dancing With the Stars."