INTERNATIONAL
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
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Bangladesh wants money, not more talks on climate change DHAKA: The terrible human cost of cyclones and flooding are plain to see in southwest Bangladesh, a low-lying, impoverished region on the frontline of the battle to adapt to climate change. Cyclone Aila, which hit in May last year, killed 300 people, washed away the embankments which make coastal regions habitable, and left 150,000 survivors reliant on emergency relief supplies including free rice. Aila was particularly destructive as a huge volume of water, swollen by spring tides, slammed into a densely populated, extremely poor area, said Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and
Development. “Bangladesh is often said to be on the ‘frontline’ of adverse climate change impacts due to this combination of a large, dense and poor population with potentially severe changes [in weather] as well as sea level rises,” Huq said. “Such severe storms are likely to become more frequent in future,” he told AFP, adding that sea level rises mean cyclones and tidal surges will become more devastating. Such dire warnings explain why, as the UN’s talks on climate change begin in Mexico, people in Bangladesh are less interested in the endless debates than in getting money to help communities prepare for increasingly extreme
weather. “Even 18 months after Cyclone Aila struck, it remains a wasteland — 90 percent of the trees are dead and the birds are still not singing,” Koyra district chief Abul Bashar told AFP. “I have 150,000 people living on government handouts, they cannot farm as their lands were flooded with salt water,” he said, adding that the area was also hit by major flooding in 2004 and 2007. In November, Bangladesh became one of the first three countries to tap into a pilot climate change fund which is funneling millions of dollars to help places like Koyra cope with and adapt to climate change. Part of Bangladesh’s grant, to be
managed by the World Bank, will help shore up the country’s coastal embankment to withstand cyclones and storm surges, and also pay for water supply projects and promote farming of more resilient crops. Tajikistan and Niger are the two other beneficiaries of the grants, the likes of which will be high on the agenda among representatives of 194 countries meeting in the Mexican resort city of Cancun. With the UN climate change negotiation process locked in deep acrimony between rich and poor nations, delegates are hoping progress on the financing issue will help rebuild trust. If all went to plan in Cancun, rich
countries would provide 30 billion dollars in “fast start” funds to worsthit nations such as Bangladesh from 2010 to 2012. This would hopefully lay the foundations for providing up to 100 billion dollars a year in aid to poor countries by 2020. “The world knows very well how we have been coping with one natural disaster after another,” environment secretary Mihir Kanti Mojumdar told AFP before leaving for Cancun. “They must compensate us and take into account our population size (146 million),” he said, adding Bangladesh wanted at least 4.5 billion dollars from the funds. “Some of the rich nations are wary of committing
money for the fund as they have been hit by global recession. But they are still rich and we are not-and we need help now,” Mojumdar said. A World Bank study released this month estimated Bangladesh would need to spend an additional 2.6 billion dollars by 2050 to ensure key infrastructure was protected from the impact of climate change. One United Nations adaptation project already under way in Bangladesh is to establish 6,100 hectares of mangrove plantations and 935 hectares of timber and fruit trees along the coast. UNDP administrator Helen Clark last month visited the remote island of Char Kukri-Mukri,
one of four sites where women have been trained to grow the mangrove saplings, as well as trees used for timber, such as bamboo. The mangroves absorb carbon and, more importantly, trap sediment in their intricate root structure at such a high rate that they can potentially reverse the effects of sea-level rises. A total of 2.5 million trees will be planted through the project.But Bangladesh undoubtedly needs much more help, and quickly. “Aila was a sign of what is to come. It gave us an idea of how bad things will be,” said Atiq Rahman, a Bangladeshi member of the IPCC, the UN’s climate change research body. —AFP
Parliament to discuss bill for additional $9.8bln in spending
India government fails to end parliamentary deadlock NEW DELHI: India’s government and opposition parties failed yesterday to break a three-week parliamentary deadlock over a corruption probe that has weakened the ruling Congress-party and stalled spending and reform bills. New Delhi may have lost up to $39 billion by selling cellular licences too cheaply, and the new telecoms minister has vowed action against holders of 85 licences that may not have met eligibility criteria and others that have
KABUL: This picture taken on November 23, 2010 shows Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai during a press conference at the presidential palace in Kabul. —AFP
Karzai pardons criminals, drug dealers: WikiLeaks KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered the release of numerous dangerous criminals and drug traffickers detained by US-led coalition forces, leaked American diplomatic cables revealed yesterday. American officials said they had repeatedly rebuked the president and Afghan attorney general Muhammad Ishaq Alko for authorising the release of detainees over a three-year period. “Both authorize the release of detainees pretrial and allow dangerous individuals to go free or re-enter the battlefield without ever facing an Afghan court,” said a cable dated August 2009 and classified as “secret” by then-US deputy ambassador to Afghanistan Francis Ricciardone. “Despite our complaints and expressions of concern to the GIRoA (Afghan government), pre-trial releases continue,” it said. Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks has begun releasing a quarter of a million confidential US diplomatic cables, detailing embarrassing and inflammatory episodes in what the White House called a “reckless and dangerous action”. In the August 2009 cable, American officials said that since 2007, 150 of the 629 detainees transferred from coalition to Afghan custody had been released without trial. It said Karzai had pardoned five border policemen in April 2009 who were caught with 124 kilograms (273 pounds) of heroin in their police vehicle and had been sentenced to terms of 16 to 18 years in prison. They were pardoned “on the grounds that they were distantly related to two individuals who had been martyred
during the civil war,” the cable noted. The document said Karzai also intervened in a narcotics case involving the son of a wealthy businessman and one of his supporters. The president ordered a second investigation “without any constitutional authority” it said, which found the defendant had been framed. The latest cable strikes at the heart of Western fears that high-level corruption within the Afghan government and judiciary is undermining the nine-year war against the Taliban. Last week the attorney general, a key ally of the president, was accused of playing politics over a criminal probe into the country’s fraud-marred parliamentary elections that were held in September. The probe has queried the disqualification of 24 poll candidates by the country’s top electoral body. Election results released last week are said to have weakened support for the president, who has allies among those disqualified. The president’s office and attorney-general’s office were not immediately available for comment over the latest disclosure. On Monday, Afghanistan said its relations with the United States would not be affected by earlier leaked cables portraying Karzai as weak and paranoid, and his brother as a corrupt drugs baron. US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, has condemned the WikiLeaks’ release and reiterated American commitment “to building and strengthening a long-term partnership with the Afghan people and the Afghan government”. “Our shared goals do not change based on the release of purported diplomatic reporting from the past,” Eikenberry said. —AFP
Afghan officials free top Taleban fighters KABUL: Afghan security forces are freeing captured senior Taleban for payment or political motives, with President Hamid Karzai and his powerful brother among those authorizing and requesting releases. The practice is so systemic that the Taleban have a committee focused on getting their fighters out of jail. It undermines the deterrent effect of arrest and the potential of the prisoner population as a card to play in peace talks, analysts say. The releases, which were confirmed to Reuters by several sources familiar with a range of cases, also raise questions about the capacity and political will of Afghan security forces meant to be taking over from foreign troops starting next year. US forces will begin drawing down numbers from next July and NATO hopes to meet Karzai’s 2014 target for all security to be provided by Afghan police and military. But cases uncovered by Reuters including that of Ghulam Haidar, a top insurgent in the southern Taleban heartland of Kandahar, suggest that a web of complex loyalties and widespread corruption are undermining the fight against the insurgency. Ghulam Haidar, meaning “servant of God”, is a common name in Afghanistan
so when Canadian forces turned one of the most dangerous men in Kandahar city over to their Afghan counterparts in March, they may not have realised who he was. Days later he was walking free again, according to three sources who have investigated prisoner releases or have seen documents about Haidar’s capture. They asked not to be named because they are not authorised to release information. “They took this guy into custody in mid-March, but he was out again in a few days. This is a classic example of what has been happening,” one former Western official told Reuters. A Kabul-based source with links to Western intelligence services confirmed Haidar was a Taleban leader known to have a major role in the insurgency around the city. Yet his freedom was requested by Karzai’s younger brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council. Dubbed “AWK” by Westerners working in Kandahar, he has an iron grip on the city but his loyalties are considered less solid. A US government cable dated 2009, released by WikiLeaks, described him as a corrupt drug trafficker. “When Ghulam Haidar was
in (Afghan) custody AWK asked for his release,” said a second source, who rejected the idea that Haidar could have been set free because he was a double agent. “If the Afghan government had good agents within the Taleban things should have gotten better-but that is obviously not the case,” the source added. Ahmad Wali Karzai said he had never asked for the release of a Taleban prisoner and had not heard of Ghulam Haidar. “I am the person most wanted by the Taleban, with nine suicide attacks against me,” he told Reuters by telephone. “I would be the last person to release the Taleban-my position is for more tough measures against them.” The Defence Ministry and National Directorate of Security, President Karzai’s office and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force all declined to respond to questions on Ghulam Haidar’s case or the wider issue of Taleban releases. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which controls the police, said it had not been involved in release of any Taleban. “We have no evidence and no examples that detained Taleban were released by government officials,” Zemarai Bashary said. —Reuters
Parliament was supposed to discuss a bill for additional spending of about $9.8 billion to ensure the functioning of government, including interest payments on government debt and subsidies on food and fuel. The government must pass the bill before the end of the parliamentary session on Dec. 13 or the government falls. But the government could force through the bill despite opposition if the decision came down to the wire. Other stalled bills included legislation to ease land acquisition for industry and mines, one of the country’s biggest roadblocks to improve ailing infrastructure. While the government will likely survive and the market impact has largely been limited to specific sectors, Congress is mindful it lost a 1989 general election partly due to a bribes scandal over gun contracts that hit then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s image. Corruption is nothing new in emerging markets such as China and India, but the stakes in India have risen as the economy modernises and investment surges but the political system remains heavily reliant on patronage and graft is rife. Shares in property firm Unitech, which has a cellular joint venture with Norway’s Telenor, and Videocon, which was among the telecom licence holders named in a government audit, fell more than 6 percent in early trade. Unitech and Videocon stocks rebounded later and closed up 4 percent and 1.95 percent, respectively, on bargain hunting, traders said. The main index gained 0.6 percent on strong economic data. Yesterday, the finance minister told investors not to panic over a bribes-for-loan case that led to eight executives being arrested in the latest graft scandal to surface this month. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested eight financial executives from the public and private sector last week, including three from brokerage Money Matters Financial Services. A CBI source said on Monday that the loans probe would be widened.”There is no need for pressing the panic button. All the loans which have given to the various concernsthey are well protected, money of the investors in these institutions,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters. The Indian economy, growing at 8.5 percent, has been beset by other scandals in the past few months, among them accusations of government mismanagement in India’s hosting of the $6 billion Commonwealth Games. The CBI, which is investigating corruption scams linked to the Games, yesterday raided the home of its organizing secretary and Games committee offices in relation to a probe into $21.7 million of misplaced funds. Despite the scandals, India remains a favored investment destination, especially for businesses hit by weak US and European economies. “India is an extraordinary market opportunity,” Ron Somers, head of the US-India Business Council, told Reuters Insider TV. “It’s not a place to do business for the faint-hearted. This is a long-term commitment.” —Reuters
failed to meet rollout requirements. It was the latest in a string of scandals that has emboldened opposition to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government and weakened his ability to govern Asia’s third largest economy.”The stalemate continues,” the leader of the opposition, Sushma Swaraj, said after the meeting at which she demanded the government accept a joint parliamentary enquiry into the case.
NEW DELHI: Indian police detain a demonstrator at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in New Delhi yesterday. —AFP
Probe under way at Kabulbank DUBAI: Suspected mismanagement at Afghanistan’s troubled Kabulbank is being investigated but the lender is under the control of the central bank and is operating normally, the Afghan finance minister told Reuters yesterday. Suspected irregularities at the country’s top private financial institution have threatened to add a financial crisis to Afghanistan’s other woes, as violence in the country has hit at an alltime high in recent months. “Mismanagement is being investi-
gated,” Omar Zakhilwal said on the sidelines of an Afghanistan investment conference in Dubai. “Kabulbank has stabilised and is operating normally,” he said, confirming that the lender was now under the control of the central bank. In September, Central Bank Governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat told Reuters the central bank had stepped in to take control of Kabulbank after customers had started a run on the bank. He also said investigations had
started into the dealings of the bank’s top two directors and shareholders, who were told to resign, and a brother of Afghan First Vice President, Mohammad Qasim Fahim. Corruption is a major concern in Afghanistan and a frequent source of tension with its Western allies. The Afghan government and the central bank had previously maintained that Kabulbank had not been taken over, despite a central bank official being appointed as chief executive officer. —Reuters
Two acquitted of sabotaging Indian billionaire’s helicopter
DHARMSALA: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama gives a religious talk at the Tsuglakhang temple in Dharmsala, India yesterday. Attended by hundreds of devotees these three-day talks ending tomorrow were requested by a Buddhist group from Russia. —AP
MUMBAI: Two men were acquitted by an Indian court yesterday after being charged with sabotaging the helicopter of one of the world’s richest men. Uday Warekar and Palraj Thevar had been on trial since August following the discovery of stones and sand in the fuel tank of the Bell 412 chopper owned by Anil Ambani, head of the giant Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, last year. They had faced a life sentence if found guilty of committing offences under India’s civil aviation act, but a judge threw out the case for lack of evidence, the domestic Press Trust of India news agency said. Ambani, 51, is the sixth richest Indian and 36th richest man in the world with a net worth of 13.7 billion dollars, according to the business magazine Forbes. Warekar and Thevar, both in their 30s, had been working at Mumbai airport with a senior technician when the items were found in the helicopter’s fuel tank on April 23 last year. The third technician was later found dead on railway tracks in the city,
apparently through suicide, with reports saying he was afraid he would be blamed. His family dispute that he took his own life. Police said the dead man was not involved in the incident, which they said formed part of a long-running feud between unions and the management at Air Works, the firm responsible for maintaining the helicopter. Air Works, which operates under the slogan “Fly Assured”, registered a complaint of “mischief with intent to cause hurt or death” immediately after the discovery of the stones, which could have interfered with the engine. A separate complaint filed by a senior pilot of Reliance Transport alleged that business rivals may have been trying to kill Ambani, who commutes to work by helicopter to avoid Mumbai’s gridlocked traffic. But police ruled out the corporate rivalry theory. Ambani’s brother, Mukesh, 54, runs India’s largest private sector firm, Reliance Industries, and is the world’s fourth-richest man with a 29-billion-dollar fortune. —AFP