Earthquakes shake south-west China’s Yunnan

BBC online, 8 September 2012

A series of earthquakes has hit south-west China, leaving at least 64 people dead and 715 injured, state-run media say.

The quakes struck the border of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, with the largest felt at 11:19 Beijing time (03:19 GMT), Xinhua news agency said.

The US Geological Survey registered the two strongest of the series of quakes at 5.6 magnitude.

The quakes affected mostly mountainous areas that saw landslides, reports say.

Premier Wen Jiabao is making his way to the area, according to Xinhua.

Zhang Junwei, a spokesman from the Yunnan seismological bureau, told the Associated Press (AP) agency that most of the deaths were from Yunnan’s Yiliang county.

“The casualty number is still being compiled. I don’t know what was like for the other towns, but my town got hit badly,” another government official in Yiliang told AP.

No deaths have been reported in Guizhou so far.

Aid agencies say they are concerned about the plight of children in the two provinces following the quakes.

“We are especially worried about those who may have been separated from their parents, as more aftershocks are expected to hit the area,” Save the Children in China Country Director Pia MacRae said.

‘Roads blocked’
The death toll may rise further, especially in areas affected by landslides, Xinhua says.

“Roads are blocked and rescuers have to climb the mountains to reach hard-hit villages,” Li Fuchun, head of Yunnan’s Luozehe town, was quoted as saying.

Xinhua reported that at least 100,000 people have been evacuated and earlier reports said that more than 20,000 houses were damaged.

Mobile and regular phone service in the area was experiencing disruption, according to reports.

Hundreds of local residents had gathered on streets littered with bricks and rocks, television footage from state-run broadcaster CCTV showed.

Users of the Twitter-like wesbite Weibo reported people rushing out of shaking office buildings, and photos posted online also showed streets strewn with rubble.

Hotel staff in the city of Zhaotong in Yunnan told the BBC that the quake shook the building, knocking things from tables and shelves, reports the BBC’s John Sudworth.

They said that people had been asked to leave their rooms and traffic had stopped in the streets, but there are no signs of panic, our correspondent adds.

Local officials said teams had been sent to distribute tents and blankets to those affected.

The largest of the quakes was also felt in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, where a 7.8 magnitude quake in 2008 left tens of thousands dead.

Buet Crisis Students to end strike if govt fulfils pledges

The Daily Star, 8 September 2012

Agitating Buet students yesterday announced that they will go back to classes only after the government meets all its assurances including removal of the pro-vice chancellor and withdrawal of a case filed against them.

A representative of the students disclosed their decision at a press conference around 4:00pm in front of the Council Building of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet).

“We are ready to return to classes if the government meets all its assurances — removal of the pro-VC Prof Habibur Rahman, withdrawal of the case and reshuffle in university and hall administrations,” said Sudipta Shaha, a final-year student of mechanical engineering.

It is a unanimous decision of the students, he told newsmen reading out a written statement.

Although the students decided to go back to classes keeping Prof Nazrul Islam as the vice-chancellor, they hoped that Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, as part of solving the crisis, will take measures to remove the VC at the earliest opportunity.

“Neither the Buet will be safe nor it would be possible to restore the institution’s glory keeping the VC in his post,” mentioned Sudipta.

The minister, he noted, has assured them of taking necessary steps to restore Buet’s glory and suitable educational atmosphere. “We believe the minister will meet the assurances with utmost sincerity.”

Earlier on Wednesday, a 16-member team of the protesting students sat with Nahid over their one-point demand for the removal of the VC and pro-VC. Two Buet teachers also accompanied the team.

The students then held several meetings with their fellows in the last two days to reach a decision on returning to their classes.

On April 7, Buet Teachers’ Association (BTA) launched an agitation raising 16 allegations of corruption against the VC and the pro-VC. But they suspended their agitation temporarily after the prime minister had assured them of meeting their demands.

As there was no progress on the issue, the teachers announced non-stop work abstention from July 14. The students and staff of the university also joined them.

Asked what they would do if it takes time to meet the assurances, Sudipta said they would return to classes straight away if the assurances are met.

“We are hopeful about a peaceful solution of the problem and don’t want to put any barrier in the way of solving the crisis,” he added.

After the press conference, Prof Ashraful Islam, general secretary of the BTA, told reporters that the academic activities will resume soon. “We will go back to classes trusting the assurances of our minister. But we are reiterating that we have no confidence in the VC and demanding his resignation or removal.”

The teachers, said Ashraful, will give the government a reasonable time as they sought time to meet the assurances.

Talking to The Daily Star, the education minister said they have already initiated the process of removing the pro-VC and withdrawing the cases filed against the teachers and students.

He urged the students to go back to classes soon.

Moon ride on port city roads

Vehicles struggle to get past the dilapidated Arakan Road in Chittagong. Potholes have plagued the road for months as no regular repair work has been done because of an ongoing widening project undertaken by the Chittagong Development Authority. The photo was taken last week. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

The Daily Star, 8 September 2012

The sluggish progress of road development in a part of the port city has put the commuters to a lot of hardships and is causing inordinate delay in reaching their destinations.

Two years ago the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) had undertaken the widening of Arakan Road, Chittagong College Road, Pathantuli Road, Dhaka Trunk Road, Bahaddarhat intersection and the stretch of Muradpur intersection to Oli Khan Road.

But the projects have made little progress so far. Project directors have cited delay in acquiring the required land and the rainy season for the lack of progress in the schemes.

ARAKAN ROAD
The authorities have dug up the roadside soil to lay drains and kept the soil on the road, which turns the road muddy after a shower of rain.

As there has been no repair of the road for a long time, a lot of potholes have developed.

Schoolteacher Romana Rashid said she does not ride rickshaw on this road as the rickshaw pullers demand extra fares.

Project Director Mahfuzur Rahman said the scheme could not hit full swing as the rainy season has set in.

The road would be carpeted after the monsoon rains, he added.

CHITTAGONG COLLEGE ROAD
The CDA has already failed to meet the June 2012 deadline for delivering the Chittagong College-Kapasgola Road Expansion and Development Project.

Aslam Uddin, a resident of Deb Pahar, said excavation work in the stretch of Goni Bakery to Chawkbazar has been going on for months. Traffic tailbacks have become a common occurrence in the area.

Nasir Uddin Mahmood Chowdhury, chief engineer of CDA, said the excavation work was delayed as they could not use bulldozers to demolish illegal structures in the area.

They avoided using bulldozers fearing it would worsen the traffic problem.

DHAKA TRUNK ROAD
The development work of the DT Road continues at a snail’s pace, complained local resident Md Rafique.

As part of the road remains impassable, commuters often get stuck in traffic congestion.

Denying the allegations, Project Director Mahfuzur Rahman said they have already finished widening the road since starting the project 10 months ago.

He hoped to start the finishing work soon.

PATHANTULI ROAD
Though the CDA had started developing the street one year ago, it has only built about 50 percent of a bridge so far near the Khan Saheb Govt Primary Girls’ School.

Rakib Ahmed, a resident, said the unplanned work has led to waterlogging on the road, which consequently creates tailbacks during school hours.

Project Director Mohammad Hasan attributed the delayed implementation of the scheme to land acquisition problems.

He hoped to deliver the project by June next year.

BAHADDARHAT INTERSECTION
As a flyover has been under construction here for a long time, maintenance of roads has been neglected. Local people complained that the roads have been virtually impassable for about one and a half years.

An engineer of the CDA said any repair of the roads will not help in the long term as it is the rainy season now and the construction of the flyover is underway.

Once the flyover is complete by December, the roads will be carpeted, he added.

MURADPUR INTERSECTION TO CHAWKBAZAR
The development work in this part of the city had started in January last year and a major part of the work still remains incomplete.

The poor state of the road has been a bane for the commuters as even riding rickshaws and walking on the road have become difficult for them.

When it rains, rickshaws as well as CNG-run three-wheelers meet with accidents here, said Mohammad Khorshed, a resident of Panchlaish area.

Asked about the dilapidated state of the road, Project Director Shahabuddin Khaled said they could not take up the repair job as the rainy season was in full flow.

Talking to The Daily Star, communications specialist Engr Subhash Barua said a road development site should have a diversion for vehicles, but the CDA does not have any.

He also blamed the authorities for taking up several projects simultaneously and not following any systematic approach to continue the development work.

Nasir Uddin Mahmood, chief engineer of CDA, expressed optimism about completing all the projects by December.

Sonali Bank Scam Swindle unearthed at another branch Tk 159cr loan given illegally

The Daily Star, 8 September 2012

Like its scam-hit Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch, Sonali Bank’s Gulshan branch has helped a number of companies to swindle Tk 159 crore out of it.

The branch approved and disbursed the money in loans and advances in the last two and a half years through underhand ways, according to an audit report.

The amount was siphoned off the branch in the name of local and foreign bills purchase and acceptance, reveals the audit done by chartered account firm Saha Mazumder & Company.

A section of officials in the branch and, probably a section of the top management in the head office, have given their clients these unauthorised loans and credit facilities, it added.

The Gulshan branch in the capital gave loans to 51 clients and the audit found irregularities in case of 35 clients. The audit was carried out between January 1 last year and May 31 this year.

In one instance, the branch gave Tk 106 crore in credit to Limra General Trading by creating accommodation bills. The branch showed exports and imports in papers to help the company to withdraw the money although no such operation took place in reality, said a Sonali Bank official.

The audit report said there were no important documents in the files of parties and there were no client-wise ledgers.

Branch Manager Akteruzzaman continued to hold the post there despite transfer order to Ramna branch on September 5 last year, according to the report.

“The transfer order was not acted upon and instead, he continued to resort to the same irregularities as before.

“This should be investigated thoroughly to see if there were any influences exercised either by the top management of the bank and by the outside political or bureaucratic strength,” said the report.

The branch manager has already been suspended following a Bangladesh Bank order. The top management of Sonali Bank will now take punitive action against him, a senior official of the bank told The Daily Star.

Another bank official said the management was planning to file cases against the officials involved in the irregularities.

This official said the central bank had sent directives to the bank management and also to the government to this end, and the process to take action against them was underway.

Irregularities in local and foreign bills purchase and acceptance have been going on in the country’s banking sector for long, said a Bangladesh Bank official, adding that the central bank had already collected information from various banks in this regard.

The BB is to sit with the chief executives of commercial banks on Thursday to discuss the findings into the loan fraud and also issue guidelines to commercial banks to stop such plundering of depositor’s money.

The audit report found unexpected growth in inland bill purchase (IBP) against total loan and advances in Gulshan branch. In September 2010, the IBP was 9 percent of total loans and advances, which went up to 51 percent in December the same year.

IBP is a bill of exchange that is drawn and made payable within the same country.

In January 2011 the IBP in the branch was 52 percent of total loans and advances, which rose to 76 percent in May this year.

In some cases, IBP transactions occurred within the sister concerns of the party of Gulshan branch against accommodated bills. Even more intriguing is that many transactions also took place within the same bank and even the same branch.

Although the Principal Office of Sonali Bank had been regularly informed about these irregularities, the General Manager’s Office, ITFD and other relevant departments of the Head Office did not take any action, the audit report said.

Agrani’s dicey deal with Beximco

The Daily Star, 8 September 2012

2010. The year of share market boom (and later bust too). Companies were witnessing astronomical gains in their share prices. A perfect time for smart people to make hay.

Beximco Group did not sit idle either. It approached the state-owned Agrani Bank and offered shares of its various concerns for loans.

In a bizarre way, Agrani gave the company Tk 244 crore in loans against the high priced shares without due diligence.

The central bank had, and still has, certain rules about loans against shares: a bank can take shares as collateral against a loan only under a calculation formula. But Agrani ignored the rule.

According to the formula, the bank will have to average the market price of shares for the last six months, and then take into account 50 percent of the average.

That is not all. The bank has also to look at the share’s face value (the price at which the share was floated) and take half of it into consideration.

The bank will then settle for whichever amount of the two is less: half of the six-month average or half the face value of the share.

Even then some banks want additional assets as collateral since shares are seen as volatile assets.

But in Beximco’s case, Agrani Bank did nothing of the kind. The bank even ignored the fact that the face value of Beximco shares was less than the six-month average price.

Agrani sanctioned the Tk 244-crore loan to the company in two phases — Tk 194 crore on August 17, 2010 and extended it by Tk 50 crore on February 24, 2011.

In so doing, the bank considered the then market price of Beximco shares and accepted the company’s shares as collateral at Tk 233 per share.

During April-October of 2010, when the first loan was given, the average price of Beximco Ltd’s share was Tk 150 a piece, according to Dhaka Stock Exchange data. The share was last traded at Tk 71.7 on Thursday and its face value was Tk 10 each.

So by accepting the share at Tk 233, Agrani gave Beximco Tk 158 more than it could give against each share as collateral.

As for the extension, the bank took Beximco Textiles’ (known as Bextex) share as collateral at Tk 65 per share. Here too the bank gave Beximco undue benefits without considering the share’s average market price.

Later, Bextex got merged with Beximco at an exchange ratio of five Bextex shares for one Beximco share, which means the textile’s share price now stands at around Tk 14 only.

The result is clear. The collateral value of the shares was Tk 283.15 crore when the loan was approved. The share value fell to Tk 84 crore on August 11 this year. As a result, the loan has become insecure by Tk 200 crore.

Although Beximco utilised the full loan by 2011 it has neither paid back the loans (except for only Tk 5 crore this year) nor provided additional securities sought by the bank to make up the gap between the loan it took and the price of shares the bank got as collateral.

Even more alarming is that the bank has failed to sell off the Beximco shares even amid a continuous slide in price. Sources inside the bank say they tried to recoup the loss by selling the shares but failed to do so because of interference from a “top man” of the company.

The “top man” is politically very influential, the sources added without naming any.

“We attempted several times to sell off the shares we hold as collateral, but we could not do it because of influence,” said a senior bank official, preferring anonymity.

But Beximco’s story does not end here.

A central bank report on August 25 this year says the principal branch of Agrani Bank opened 16 local letters of credit (LC) worth Tk 228.9 crore to help Beximco Ltd buy yarn from Beximco Textile.

Here too, Agrani breached the central bank rules by not paying Tk 89.87 crore bills to other state-run banks against seven bills even after they had matured.

As Beximco did not pay back the loans, Agrani was forced to create a Tk 125.3-crore demand loan (forced loan) against the company.

However, the bank took a long time to create the demand loan, says the BB report.

During inspection, the central bank team assessed that Beximco would not be able to pay Tk 89.87 crore without Agrani Bank having created the forced loan.

Syed Abdul Hamid, managing director of Agrani Bank, said the issue was within his knowledge, but he declined to elaborate.

When asked about the central bank’s inspection and detection of irregularities, he said: “I can’t comment without verification.”

Contacted by The Daily Star, Beximco in a written statement said letters of credit were opened as per rules and such operations were not unusual for any bank or company engaged in similar business.

“We could not make payments on due dates, as our buyers delayed in making payments. So this is a temporary cash-flow mismatch which will correct itself as the economic scenario has improved and we are expecting payments from our buyers which will enable us to repay Agrani Bank,” it said.

The company added when the LCs were opened the bank took collateral to cover the liabilities fully, as per the business norms.

Regarding the loan against shares, it said: “The collateral value appears low now as the value of share prices has gone down due to the current market situation.

“It may be mentioned here that the company’s net worth as of June 30, 2012 is Tk 4,534 crore and all the directors have given their personal guarantees to the bank. So the banks cannot be said to be at risk due to these loans.”

BB needs functional autonomy to strengthen its supervisory role

The Financial Express, 8 September 2012

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) needs more operational independence to exercise properly its regulatory powers over the country’s financial sector, in tandem with its own stepped-up efforts for its capacity building, the observers said.

They said the latest scam in the state-owned Sonali Bank Limited has, once again, highlighted the need on guaranteeing proper functional independence to the Bangladesh Bank (BB), without being encumbered by any unnecessary interference by any other authority or influenced by any powerful political quarters.

The BB has been computerised and is now better equipped infrastructure-wise to ensure close supervision of the financial sector, the sources said while noting that the quality of the BB’s human resources still needs to be upgraded.

In recent times, the BB, however, arranged some in-house training programmes for some of its officials on modern banking supervision, monitoring and auditing system, along with both off-sight and on-sight inspection in different phases. Besides, some new departments that those of money laundering prevention unit and the financial intelligent unit, have been set up in the central bank to monitor various types of fraudulent financial practices and crimes.

But such efforts do need to be carried forward further, with measures taken to recruit more efficient and qualified manpower with probity and integrity, the knowledgeable sources.

For that matter, the compensation packages of the BB officials should be delinked from the national pay scales and higher remuneration on market-driven considerations should be paid to better qualified and more efficient manpower of the central bank, the sources added.

While talking to the FE Thursday on the latest Hallmark scam, former governor to the central bank Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said: “The BB has done the right thing as per the Bank Companies Act by recommending to the government to reconstruct the board of directors of Sonali Bank.”

“I think the finance minister was earlier wrong in commenting that the central bank has no jurisdiction to make such recommendations. That kind of remark would only reflect that the central bank is yet not able to work independently.”

“It could not happen if the central bank had real autonomy,” he added.

The immediate-past BB governor Dr Salehuddin Ahmed also said the central bank urgently needs its autonomy to help supervise the country’s financial sector more vigorously without facing interference by any quarters.

“While I was working as the governor, I had always tried to make the central bank an autonomous body. It was not possible because of the government’s unwillingness and political influence. The government was in a fear to provide the autonomy.”

“I believe that the government’s interference in the activities of the central bank within its operational domain is gradually increasing day by day,” he said.

“The BB urgently needs its autonomy, so that the organisation can work more actively and independently,” he added.

Former caretaker government adviser Dr Akbar Ali Khan also agreed that the central bank’s capacity to regulate the financial sector has improved considerably. But the BB cannot work independently due to political influence, he noted.

He said the government should not influence at all the decisions of the central bank in areas of its functional remit, as it discourages the BB to demonstrate its real capacity to supervise the banking sector.

Now the BB is more active in regulating the private banks. But the government is not providing it adequate scope to supervise the state-owned commercial banks, he said.

“If the central bank gets the right signals from the government, it will perform better,” he added.

Meanwhile, fears have been expressed by some knowledgeable circles in financial sector and also outside it, about things deteriorating further in the overall banking sector, about non-performing loans (NPLs) in particular, if appropriate actions are not taken in right time to enforce discipline in matters of loan approval, disbursement and recovery.

If the state of affairs in the banking sector that has otherwise performed relatively better during the time of the global financial troubles three or four years back, is allowed to deteriorate, it will not be a surprise to witness a status quo ante — as was prevalent at the time of the initiation of the first generation of financial sector reforms in the late 1980s. Then NPLs in the banking sector had reached to a very high level — over 30 per cent with most of the state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) which were the dominant players during that period, the same circles apprehend.

“The Hallmark loan scam, the largest one unearthed so far in the country’s largest SCB, may be a eye-opener. The amount of money is very big in this case but nobody can still be sure whether there have not been ‘mini’ or ‘similar’ cases of gross irregularities with bank loans with other financial institutions. A careful scrutiny of all relevant loan cases and a critical examination of stuck-up, rescheduled or non-performing loan portfolios of different banks, will help ascertain things in the right perspectives,” they noted.

The country’s financial sector has undergone through various phases of reforms in the last two decades and the asset quality of the loan portfolios of all banks and also their position about the NPLs should be much better than before”, a retired senior banker said on condition of anonymity.

“Otherwise, the basic objective of such so-called reforms will be lost”, he observed.

BPC pleads for cutting SCBs’ high commission rate

The Financial express, 8 September 2012

Foreign banks are offering better rates of commission to the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) against opening letters of credit (L/Cs) for import of oil products than those being charged by the state-owned commercial banks (SCBs), a top government official said.

The rate of commission being charged by the foreign banks, especially the Standard Chartered and the HSBC, is 0.25 per cent from the BPC for opening L/Cs against import of petroleum from the international market, he said.

The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), the lending arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), is charging even less commission — at 0.16 per cent — on L/Cs against the BPC’s oil import.

But the SCBs are charging a higher rate — at 0.40 per cent — from the BPC for import of oil, which is similar to other businesses.

“This is unfortunate that the SCBs are charging higher rates of commission than those of the foreign banks for opening L/Cs against import of oil products by the BPC,” said the official.

The higher commission rate, being charged by the SCBs, is adding to the financial burden of the cash-strapped BPC, he added.

“We have sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) requesting necessary actions to reduce the rate of commission,” said BPC’s outgoing Chairman Abubakar Siddique.

The state-owned corporation wants the commission to be cut back to 0.25 per cent that will help it to save a large amount of money in foreign currency.

He also demanded timely settlement of L/Cs by the SCBs for the sake of smooth import of petroleum products from the international market.

The SCBs very often linger on settlement of the L/Cs, resulting in payment of penalty to the oil suppliers, he alleged.

The Jeddah-based ITFC has been providing a term loan worth $ 500 million to the BPC against the opening of L/Cs under an agreement to provide $2.0 billion to the BPC in loan in the current Islamic calendar year that began on November 27, 2011.

Bangladesh had to make a change in the related law for allowing the ITFC to provide the L/C facility to the BPC.

For importing oil with the remaining amount of the ITFC loan, the BPC has to open L/Cs with the local banks.

The BPC is getting the loan at a “mark-up rate” of 5.0 per cent, as charging of interest is forbidden in Islamic financing. The government is the guarantor of the ITFC loan.

The corporation imported 5.3 million tonnes of crude oil and refined products during the fiscal year 2011-12, up by 8.16 per cent from the previous fiscal.

The BPC estimated that the total cost of the import would be around $4.8 billion, up by 20 per cent from $4.0 billion of the previous fiscal.

During the last fiscal, the BPC imported around 1.4 million tonnes of crude oil, 2.7 million tonnes of 0.25pc sulfur gas oil, 900,000 tonnes of 180 CST high sulfur fuel oil with 3.5pc sulfur content, and a combined 300,000 tonnes of kerosene, jet fuel, 95 RON gasoline and 92 RON gasoline, the BPC officials said.

The BPC has currently term deals on import of refined oil products from Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Petco — the trading arm of Malaysia’s Petronas, the Philippines National Oil Company (PNOC), the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), Egypt’s Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR), the Maldives National Oil Company (MNOC), PetroChina and Indonesia’s PT Bumi Siak Pusako.

The corporation also has crude oil import deals with Saudi Aramco and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

KEPZ gets one-fifth of land promised earlier

The financial Express, 8 September 2012

The government has asked the Korean Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) authorities in Chittagong to develop industrial plots only in one-fifth of the area that was earmarked for it earlier.

Some 2,492 acres of land was earmarked for the KEPZ originally. Of it 700 acres belonged to the private individuals and the rest to the government.

In 1999, the government handed over land to KEPZ which got its operational licence in 2007 during the last caretaker government.

But for non-completion of land transfer deal with the government, it could not lease out industrial plots to interested foreign investors.

The complexities relating to the land mutation might be resolved after providing detailed plans covering the 500 acres of land as instructed by the Prime Minister Office (PMO).

A senior official at the KEPZ office in Dhaka told the FE: “We’ve already submitted our plans to the office of the deputy commissioner of Chittagong as per the PMO directive.”

There is however uncertainty over the remaining 2,000 acres of land area earmarked for development the EPZ.

The PMO order to Youngone, the owning company of the EPZ, came following a meeting between the Prime Minister and the representatives of the private EPZ recently held at the PMO.

Officials at the KEPZ told the FE that only one factory — Karnaphuli Shoe Factory — has been set up by the Seoul-based company in 14 years due to the delay in transfer of land.

“Investors want to know about status of our land, but we cannot provide official documents to them in support of land purchases,” said a senior official at the EPZ.

He said investors often visit the EPZ but the complexities relating to land mutation are forcing them to re-think about the investment in it.

He said recently ten big investors enquired about setting up ready-made garment factories in the EPZ.

Expressing his frustration he however said, “If the investors do not finally come to us, they will go to Myanmar, Vietnam and other developing nations.”

In 1995, the then BNP government led by Khaleda Zia signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea to set up the KEPZ.

The following year, the then Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina framed a new law to allow operation of private EPZs in the country.

In 1999, the then government handed over 2,500 acres of land to Korean company Youngone to develop the EPZ.

The KEPZ has so far developed a substantial area of land as industrial plots, 22 kilometres of internal road network including golf playing facilities.

According to the EPZ officials, when it will be fully operational, the KEPZ aims at attracting investments of over US$ 1.0 billion and employing around 100,000 people directly and another 200,000 indirectly.

US judge rejects new rules for Guantanamo lawyers

Daily sun, 8 September 2012

WASHINGTON: A US federal judge on Thursday rejected a new set of rules proposed by the Obama administration that would have placed added restrictions on lawyers’ access to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court in Washington said a four-year-old court order on lawyer access at the US naval base in Cuba was working well and would continue to govern the exchanges.

In a blistering opinion, Lamberth accused President Barack Obama’s administration of confusing “the roles of the jailer and the judiciary.”

He lashed out at the federal government’s “preposterous position” that detainees seeking counsel represent themselves in legal proceedings or write to the court, even though most Guantanamo detainees do not know English and, in some cases, are illiterate in their own languages.

The judge, who was appointed by Republican president Ronald Reagan, criticized Obama’s Democratic administration for engaging in an “illegitimate exercise of executive power” by trying to change the rules.

“In the case of Guantanamo detainees, access to the courts means nothing without access to counsel,” Lamberth added.

He used his opinion to deliver a diatribe against the judicial process at Guantanamo, noting that since the first detainees were brought there a decade ago, “only a handful” have been tried or convicted.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the agency’s lawyers were “reviewing” the ruling, and had no further comment.

The Pentagon and the Justice Department had told attorneys representing Guantanamo prisoners that they could no longer access the detention center unless they signed a memorandum of understanding that the court said gave officials overwhelming discretion over visits by lawyers.

The memo would have applied to prisoners who lost their appeals in court or whose cases were otherwise denied or dismissed. Under the new rules, the lawyers would have also been subjected to restrictions on classified information gleaned from their clients.

But Lamberth was adamant there was no need for a change.

“The old maxim ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ would seem to caution against altering a counsel-access regime that has proven safe, efficient and eminently workable,” he wrote.

“Indeed, the government had no answer when the court posed this question in oral arguments.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents several Guantanamo prisoners, hailed the opinion, saying the new rules would have given the government “unfettered control” over Guantanamo. —AFP

Obama’s speech sets Twitter record

US Vice President Joe Biden stands with US President Barack Obama following Obama’s address at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday on the final day of the Democratic National Convention. AFP PHOTO

Daily sun, 8 September 2012

CHARLOTTE: Barack Obama’s prime-time address to the nation accepting the Democratic presidential nomination for 2012 broke a new Twitter record Thursday for political traffic, the site said.

“A new record political moment on Twitter: @barackobama drives 52,757 Tweets per minute. Over 9 million Tweets sent about #DNC2012,” the micro-blogging site tweeted.

Obama earlier implored Americans to grant him a second term to complete his battered crusade for change, warning of the starkest election choice in a generation.

The race between the president and his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts governor and multi-millionaire businessman Mitt Romney, is neck-and-neck with fewer than nine weeks to go until election day. —AFP