Tipaimukh deal struck 'silently': report

Dhaka, Nov 19 —Manipur's government has secretly struck an investment deal with a number of state-run organisations for setting up the controversial hydroelectric power plant and Tipaimukh dam on India's Borak River.

BBC said in a report that the agreement was signed on Oct 22 between the State Government of Manipur and hydro developers Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd and NHPC (formerly known as the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited) at New Delhi under major wraps.

The deal would see the setting up of a joint company, which will be responsible for the construction of the dam and the power plant, the report said.

Hiron, aunt suspended over dowry claims

Barguna, Nov 18  — Primary school heads Shawkat Ali Hiron, divorced at his wedding, and his aunt Tahmina Khanam have been suspended for allegedly demanding dowry from bride Farzana Yasmin's family.

Kalaparha primary and mass education officer Ruhul Amin on Friday said Patuakhali primary and mass education officer Abdul Kader ordered the suspension taking retroactive effect from Nov 15.

"The suspension letters will be sent to them on Saturday as the office is closed [on Friday]. But they have been verbally informed," he added.

Hiron, who hails from Kalaparha upazila, is the headmaster of Uttar Chakamaya Government Primary School. His aunt Tahmina is the headmistress of Nilganj Primary Government Primary School in the same area.

UPDF denies opposing peace accord

Rangamati, Nov  18 —More than one senior leaders of United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) have sought to shake off the label that the regional political party is opposed to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997 that ended decades-old bloody bush war.

"The UPDF itself has never said anything against implementation of the peace accord; instead, the media made it an anti-peace deal front," its central leader Alokesh Chakma told bdnews24.com on Friday.

He, however, added that the pact was incomplete in that it does not fully safeguard the rights of the hills people.

Alokesh said they are waging democratic movements to ensure the rights to land of the indigenous people.

The peace agreement was signed on Dec 2, 1997 between the Awami League government and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS), which is United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in English.

'Donors dither on transparency vow'

Dhaka, Nov 17 — A global campaign group says international aid donors are backing out of aid transparency promises, a UK newspaper reports.

UK-based campaign group Publish What You Fund told the London newspaper Financial Times the latest draft of the 'Outcome Document' to be agreed upon at a key international meeting on aid effectiveness showed some governments backsliding on commitments they have made.

At previous summits, the donors had promised more transparency, reduction of the practice of tying aid to purchases from the donor country and streamlining the bureaucracy by using recipient countries' financial and administrative systems.

Karin Christiansen, managing director of Publish What You Fund, told Financial Times on Tuesday, "Over the last couple of weeks, some donors have been trying to water down commitments on transparency. The current draft outcome document betrays a lack of ambition and an inclination among donors to defer to the lowest common denominator."

Greeks protest as France, Spain squeezed

Rome/Paris, Nov 18- Italy's new government has announced far-reaching reforms in response to a European debt crisis that on Thursday pushed borrowing costs for France and Spain sharply higher, and brought tens of thousands of Greeks onto the streets of Athens.

Italy's new technocrat prime minister, Mario Monti, unveiled sweeping reforms to dig the country out of crisis and said Italians were confronting a "serious emergency."

Monti, who enjoys 75 percent support according to opinion polls, comfortably won a vote of confidence in his new government in the Senate on Thursday, by 281 votes to 25.

He faces another confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, on Friday, which he also expected to win comfortably.

Govt nods proposal to tax ministers

Dhaka, Nov 17 —The cabinet has cleared proposals to tax salaries of ministers and state ministers, who will have to pay income tax once they are passed by parliament.

The approval came from a cabinet meeting on Thursday chaired by prime minister Sheikh Hasina, her press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters.

Prime minister Hasina had announced in the last budget session of parliament that ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers's salaries will be taxed.

The latest nod was a step towards the implementation of that announcement.

Azad said the proposals were about amendments to The Prime Minister (Remuneration and Privileges) Act-1975 and The Ministers, Ministers of State, Deputy Ministers (Remuneration and Privileges) Act-1973.

He said ministers discussed 14

Authorities foil NY protest bid

New York, Nov 18 - New York police prevented protesters from shutting down Wall Street on Thursday, arresting more than 200 people in repeated clashes with an unexpectedly small but spirited Occupy Wall Street rally.

Protesters took to the streets in rainy New York and cities across the United States for a day of action seen as a test of the momentum of the two-month-old grass-roots movement against economic inequality.

Organizers and city officials had expected tens of thousands to turn out for a demonstration following the New York police raid that broke up the protesters' encampment in a park near Wall Street on Tuesday.

A crowd that disappointed organizers throughout the day grew to several thousand after the standard workday ended and labour union activists joined a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, where last month more than 700 people were arrested during a similar march.

'All that needs be done will be done'

Dhaka, Nov – No government agency will ask any question about 'undisclosed income' invested in the stock market, and short-, medium- and long-term plans will be announced in a day or two, a prime minister-led meeting has decided.

An SEC member, briefing newsmen on the nearly 4-hour-long high-profile meeting on Wednesday night, said the commercial banks would go all out to inject more cash into the market that has seen poor turnover during the past weeks.

"No government agency will raise any questions about undisclosed income," Arif Khan said after the Ganabhaban meeting that ended minutes before midnight.

"The plans will aim to help the small investors recover their losses," he said adding they plans could be disclosed within one or two days.

BNP agitation to shield corrupt, war criminals: PM

Gopalganj, Nov 16 – Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said the agitation of opposition BNP seeking restoration of the non-party caretaker government system mainly aims to protect the 'identified' war criminals and corrupt people.

"The BNP chairperson is waging movement to protect her two corrupt sons and halt the trial of those responsible for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. But the countrymen will not respond to them," she said on Wednesday.

She was addressing a public meeting on Sheikh Lutfar Rahman Government College premises at Kotalipara upazila in Gopalganj district.

"When Awami League comes to power, the country is rewarded, but when BNP assumes power, the country is reprimanded."

Tarique 'spent money sent to S'pore'

Dhaka, Nov 16 — Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Debra LaPrevotte has told a Dhaka court about her findings in an investigation into the allegation of money-laundering against BNP chief Khaleda Zia's elder son Tarique Rahman and his friend Giasuddin Al Mamun.

At Dhaka's Special Judges' Court-3 on Wednesday, she said she checked Tarique and Mamun's bank accounts in Singapore's City Bank NA.

LaPrevotte found the senior vice chairman had travelled and bought many things with $50,613 he had withdrawn from Mamun's bank account through two VISA credit cards.

The US investigator said the FBI had investigated the matter at the request of the last caretaker government and the Anticorruption Commission.

According to the case filed by the ACC in 2009, Tarique and Mamun allegedly channelled funds worth over Tk 204 million or $ 2.73 million out to Singapore between 2003 and 2007.