W O R L D

Hundreds injured as strike enters second day in Bangladesh
Dhaka, January 30
At least 100 persons, including Opposition Parliament members and a former minister, were injured during violent clashes in Dhaka and Chittagong as protestors set on fire buses and damaged trains during the nationwide strike which entered its second day today.

A Bangladeshi armed policeman looks on as an empty bus burns in Dhaka on Sunday. The main Opposition Awami League had called for a three-day countrywide strike from Saturday to protest against the bomb attack on a rally in northeastern Hobigani, 250 km from Dhaka, on Thursday. — Reuters photo

Pakistan not to discuss Baglihar with WB team
Islamabad, January 30
Pakistan has decided not to take up its dispute with India on the Baglihar hydro-power project in Jammu and Kashmir with outgoing President of the World Bank James D Wolfensohn during his visit here on February 6.

Biggest contingent of Japanese military medical teams arrive in Banda Aceh province. (28k, 56k)

Over 100,000 Pakistanis deported in two years 
Peshawar, January 30
Human trafficking from Pakistan has increased sharply as more than 100,000 illegal immigrants were deported to the country in two years who had travelled to western countries and Gulf states, either on forged documents or overstayed there.

Pollution pool over Bihar, reveals NASA satellite
Washington, January 30
A NASA research team, examining air pollution levels over the Indian subcontinent, has found an immense pollution pool over Bihar, about five times larger than those typically found over Los Angeles, and concluded that it must be having a tremendous impact on the local climate and public health.

The language of them and us can be lethal for immigrants
Amid the debate about whether we have too much immigration in Britain, no the immigrants themselves. Politicians, keen to crank up a climate of fear for political ends, should be made aware of a study recently published in the academic journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

Six Maoists killed
Kathmandu, January 30
At least six Maoists were killed in a gunbattle with the security forces in Nepal where the rebels forcibly took over an ancestral house of an Inspector General of Police, army sources said today.

Hundreds injured as strike enters second day in Bangladesh

Dhaka, January 30
At least 100 persons, including Opposition Parliament members and a former minister, were injured during violent clashes in Dhaka and Chittagong as protestors set on fire buses and damaged trains during the nationwide strike which entered its second day today.

Witnesses said former Home Minister Mohammad Nasim and MP Ekabbar Hossain were beaten up by the riot police during the pro-strike demonstration at the Russel Square in central Dhaka.

They said the police used 20-25 tear gas canisters to break up a procession in old Dhaka, leaving many of people injured and arresting many. Angry protestors set fire to two mini-buses in the Matijheel commercial area this afternoon.

Several press photographers were injured following a tussle between the police and photographers who were covering the strike.

Mosatafa-e-Zamil, Director, Public Relations of the Railway Department, said angry mobs beat up railway officials and stoned and damaged engines and compartments of various inter-city express trains causing disruption of train service.

The Opposition parties, led by the Awami League, enforced the 60-hour non-stop strike this morning to protest the Habiganj grenade blast in which a former Finance Minister of the Awami League government and four others were killed this Thursday.

The strike continued to disrupt normal life and business in Dhaka and other major cities, including the commercial city of Chittagong.

A report from Chittagong said at least 50 persons were injured in clashes between protestors and the police today. The police and paramilitary BDR kept the Awami League office under siege. — UNI

Pakistan not to discuss Baglihar with WB team

Islamabad, January 30
Pakistan has decided not to take up its dispute with India on the Baglihar hydro-power project in Jammu and Kashmir with outgoing President of the World Bank James D Wolfensohn during his visit here on February 6.

"We will not raise the Baglihar dam issue with the World Bank President or with the executive directors," who are visiting with him, Mr Salman Shah, Adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister on economic issues told reporters yesterday.

Pakistan has asked the bank to arbitrate on the Baglihar hydro-power project being built by India on the Chenab, which it claims violates the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty.

Its Ambassador to Washington Jahangir Karamat has met Mr Wolfensohan twice since Pakistan filed its reference before the bank on January 18.

The bank has said that it has received a set of documents from Pakistan to support its request for the appointment of a "neutral expert" to consider differences that have arisen in the application of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty

"The World Bank is a signatory to the Treaty for certain specified purposes. It is not a guarantor of the Treaty," a press release issued by the bank in Washington on January 28 said.

It said it has immediately requested Pakistan to share with it a record of the actions taken prior to the request to ensure meticulous compliance with the Treaty by all parties after receiving Pakistan's letter for arbitration.

A 10-member team of the bank's executive directors headed by Mr Wolfensohn is arriving here next week on a five-day visit.— PTI

Over 100,000 Pakistanis deported in two years 
Shafiq Ahmad
By Arrangement with the Dawn

Peshawar, January 30
Human trafficking from Pakistan has increased sharply as more than 100,000 illegal immigrants were deported to the country in two years who had travelled to western countries and Gulf states, either on forged documents or overstayed there.

The actual figure of deported Pakistanis is thought to be much higher than what official statistics show, because a large number of them are released by the immigration authorities without following legal procedure, well-placed sources in Islamabad told this correspondent on Friday.

Despite the fact that the immigration cell of the Federal Investigation Agency interrogated these illegal immigrants after their deportation to Pakistan in the past two years, the cases of only 1,667 persons were sent to the FIA passport circle for inquires or registration of cases, the sources said.

In 2004, a total of 54,469 Pakistanis were deported from different countries on charges of travelling either on fake documents or staying there after the expiry of their visas. In 2003, a total of 47,931 persons were deported to the country.

The figures include those deported through international airports of the country and the Pakistan-Iran border at Taftan.

The Pakistanis deported in the past four years from Muscat by the Oman immigration authorities to Karachi through motorboats are not included in the FIA list of deported persons.

According to these sources, more than 35,000 illegal Pakistani immigrants, mostly labourers, were deported to Karachi. These people travelled to Oman through motorboats after paying to human smugglers whose network is spread all over the country.

According to the official figures available with Dawn, 185 persons were deported to Lahore airport in 2003. This number increased to 506 the next year. However, the immigration authorities handed over only 57 and 148 persons, respectively, to the passport circle for interrogation.

The deported persons who landed at Karachi airport in 2003 were 34,518 and 32,480 in 2004. But only 524 and 345 deported persons were sent to the passport circle for initiating inquires against them.

The number of illegal Pakistani immigrants deported from various countries to Islamabad in 2003 was 907. However, the immigration authorities sent cases of only 79 persons to the FIA passport circle.

The next year, the figure of deported persons jumped to 2,785, but again the immigration cell sent only 345 cases for investigation to the passport circle.

In 2003, 46 Pakistanis were deported to Peshawar, while in 2004 the number rose to 66. The immigration authorities sent cases of all of the deported persons to the passport circle for inquiry or registration of cases against them.

The immigration authorities at Quetta took into custody 6,257 deported persons in 2003, while the next year, the authorities received 8,329 deported persons. However, the immigration cell did not send even a single case for investigation to the passport circle.

The immigration authorities took into custody 6,018 deported persons at Ghass Bandar on the Karachi port in 2003, whereas the figure of deported persons rose to 10,294 the next year.

However, no person was deported either through the Wahga border or through the Wahga railway station in the past two years. 

Pollution pool over Bihar, reveals NASA satellite

Washington, January 30
A NASA research team, examining air pollution levels over the Indian subcontinent, has found an immense pollution pool over Bihar, about five times larger than those typically found over Los Angeles, and concluded that it must be having a tremendous impact on the local climate and public health.

“Blanketing around 100 million people, primarily in the Ganges Valley, the pollution levels are about five times larger than those typically found over Los Angeles,” NASA said in a release.

The discovery was made by researchers analysing four years of data collected by the Multi-angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MISR) onboard the Terra satellite, the flagship of NASA’s Earth Observing System Programme.

“This study is the most comprehensive and detailed examination of industrial, smoke and other air pollution particles over the Indian subcontinent to date, and reveals how topography, meteorology and human activity help determine where these particles are concentrated,” said Larry Di Girolamo, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a co-investigator on the MISR mission.

While high pollution levels were found over much of India, a concentrated pool of particles was discovered over Bihar.

Researchers attributed the Bihar pollution pool to the inefficient burning of a variety of biofuels during cooking and other domestic use. Particles in the smoke remain close to the ground, trapped by valley walls, and unable to mix upward because of a high-pressure system that dominates the region during winter.

Prior to the MISR study, atmospheric models had predicted a tongue of pollution extending across the middle of India. The MISR observations, however, show the pollution lay much farther north. — PTI

The language of them and us can be lethal for immigrants
By Raj Persaud

Amid the debate about whether we have too much immigration in Britain, no the immigrants themselves. Politicians, keen to crank up a climate of fear for political ends, should be made aware of a study recently published in the academic journal Psychosomatic Medicine. This found a direct link between the number of racially antagonistic slurs in our language, and the suicide rate in certain groups.

The study focused on 10 ethnic communities within the US and examined the presence of words commonly found in everyday language directed towards these communities. These include terms like "dumb Polack" for a Pole or "taffy" for a Welsh person. The most astonishing finding was that ethnic immigrant groups subjected to more "hate speech" were more likely than others to commit suicide. What the study reveals is the truly damaging power of words.

The number of negative words for an ethnic group in a language is no accident. It reflects the level of antagonism in a host culture, which might otherwise be difficult to observe or measure given how politically incorrect an open avowal of racism is.

While the Conservative leader Michael Howard might not be fully abreast of this latest research, it would be foolish for anyone to underestimate the depth of the psychology he is plumbing by putting immigration at the centre of British political debate.

Mr Howard seems to have studied at the feet of that underestimated psychologist George Bush, who has used similar tactics to exploit dark stirrings in the American mind. On both sides of the Atlantic the psychology of fear is being used like a weapon.

Soon after 11 September, it emerged that the terrorists, abetted by lax immigration control and liberal visa provisions for foreign students, had infiltrated American society with great ease. There were whispers that they had found safe havens in Muslim and Arab-American communities. Thus, immigration control from the outset became a cornerstone of Mr Bush's "war on terror" and was closely linked in the public mind to efforts to protect Americans from an array of shadowy threats. It is no accident that words with powerful emotive connotations like "home" are deployed by Bush strategists. Hence the "Department of Homeland Security".

Mr Howard's recent statements are just the early sounds of the ammunition being loaded. Get ready for many salvos using the terminology of "us" and "them", drawing on the politics of fear.

If our politicians were interested in stimulating anything other than the primitive parts of our brains, they would argue that human capital is the most important form of wealth for a modern nation. Our population is ageing and we increasingly need young, highly skilled workers to fill gaps in the labour force. Realistically, this need can be met only by sensible immigration. Perhaps Howard has another reason to stoke up a fear of "them". It has a beneficial effect for a Conservative tax agenda. A study published in the Journal of Public Economics looked at levels of low-education immigration to 11 European countries, including the UK, from 1974 to 1992. It found that the higher this proportion, the more likely was the eventual election of governments that reduce tax rates and welfare spending. The theory is that voters become resentful of the perception that a larger portion of their taxes is going to support low-income immigrants, and so duly turn against taxation and welfare.

One thing is clear: more elections are being dominated by an agenda driven by "us" and "them". This makes it more difficult for "them" to bond with the host society - leading to a reduced likelihood of immigration benefiting anyone.

Historically, the lack of cheap transport and communications technology has meant that immigrants had no choice but to set down roots in their adopted country. In contrast, contemporary immigrants easily retain links to their homelands. This naturally reduces their ties to a host society - particularly if the hosts are ungracious.

As a result, we could be witnessing a modern phenomenon - communities whose members claim political membership in more than one state, contribute to more than one economy, and, thanks to improved transport technologies, maintain a physical presence in more than one nation. If we are not careful, the antagonism to the "other" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Six Maoists killed

Kathmandu, January 30
At least six Maoists were killed in a gunbattle with the security forces in Nepal where the rebels forcibly took over an ancestral house of an Inspector General of Police, army sources said today.

A fierce gunbattle broke out between rebels and a joint team of the security forces and armed rebels in the Sundariphant area of Kanchanpur district in far-west Nepal last night.

Around 400 armed rebels were involved in the gunbattle, in which the army used long range weapons and mortars. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Jemima’s charity on defaulters list
LONDON: Britain’s Charity Commission has placed Jemima Khan’s charity for Afghan refugees on a list of defaulters for failing to file any annual returns or accounts. The Charity, which was launched in April 2001 as an appeal for 80,000 persons who had fled the Taliban, is to wind up operations. — PTI

7 held for attack on US Embassy
BAGHDAD: Seven persons were arrested in the rocket attack on the US Embassy which killed two Americans, the US military said on Sunday. “Following the attack on the embassy, the men fled the scene of the rocket launch, but were tracked at a residence in southeastern Baghdad,’’ the statement said. — AP

12 killed in clash
MANILA: The government troops and armed men clashed in the southern Philippines, leaving 12 gunmen dead and three soldiers wounded, the military said on Sunday. The eight-hour clash broke out on Saturday as 50 armed men were being pursued by the marines and the police for the killing of four militiamen and torching of houses and shops in a village in Lanao del Sur’s Tuburan town, Philippine Marines spokesman Rommel Abrau said in a statement.— AP

Five killed in Kuwaiti clashes
KUWAIT CITY: A policeman, three suspected militants and a Bahraini civilian were killed during heavy clashes on Sunday outside Kuwait City, state-run Kuwait television reported. A suspect was also arrested and four security men wounded, the television station said, following an hour-long gunbattle in the district of Salmiya. It was the third clash in a month between suspected Islamist militants and security men in the tiny oil-rich Gulf emirate. — AFP