At least one person has been killed and 20 injured in Afghanistan in the second day of protests over the burning of copies of the Koran.

There were demonstrations in Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad.

On Tuesday, the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen, apologised after Korans were “inadvertently” put in an incinerator at Bagram airbase.

US officials reportedly believed Taliban prisoners were using the books to pass messages to each other.

The charred remains of the volumes were found by local labourers.

Protesters in Kabul shouted, “Death to America!” and threw stones at Camp Phoenix, the main US base in the city.

A doctor in Jalalabad told the BBC one protester had been killed and 10 injured. Another 10 were wounded in Kabul.

Witnesses at the protests in Kabul said security guards were firing into the air. There were also reports of people chanting pro-Taliban slogans.

Demonstrators blocked the road linking Kabul with Jalalabad, one of the main trade routes into the Afghan capital.

Riot police used water cannon to disperse protesters, the AFP news agency reported from Kabul.

One protester, 18-year-old Ajmal, told Reuters: “When the Americans insult us to this degree, we will join the insurgents.”

The US embassy in Kabul has tweeted that it is on lockdown and all travel is suspended.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said he and Gen Allen apologised to the Afghan people “and disapprove of such conduct in the strongest possible terms”.

After previous incidents, many Afghans find it hard to understand how US forces could have allowed the Koran to have been burned, says the BBC’s Andrew North, in Kabul.

Afghanistan is a very religious country, he adds, but also one where many people are illiterate and susceptible to attempts to whip up anger.

Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.

The Nato-led Isaf force is now investigating the incident, a spokesman told the BBC.

“It was the local workers who discovered the nature of the material and therefore stopped worse things from happening,” said Brig Gen Karsten Jacobson.

“But it was a mistake and that’s what we’re investigating at the moment, how did this come to be, what orders were given?

“But at the end of the day we have to stand to the fact a mistake was made and the commander apologised.”

Last year, at least 24 people died in protests across Afghanistan after a hardline US pastor burned a Koran in Florida.

On Tuesday, one person was wounded and five detained after troops at Bagram, 60km (40 miles) north of Kabul, fired rubber bullets at protests.

Bagram includes a prison for Afghans detained by Nato forces.

Source:bb c

The latest economic data from the eurozone is a disappointment.

The Composite PMI (a survey of purchasing manager conducted by Markit) came in at 49.7, down from the 50.4 recorded in January. A figure below 50 shows a contraction, and will fuel fears that the eurozone will officially fall into recession this quarter.

More to come (news meeting calls)

9.05am: Three seperate rallies are scheduled to take place in Athens today. Here’s the details, via Living In Greece.

• The ADEDY and GSEE unions (the two biggest in Greece) have called a rally set for 16:00 EET (2pm GMT) outside Parliament in Athens.
• Insurance Fund employees to rally at 12:00 EET (10am GMT) outside OEK Patission and Solomou in Athens.
• PAME Communist workers group will begin a rally at 17:00 EET (3pm GMT), starting from Omonia and converging with union protest outside Parliament in Athens
• A second rally is being organised in Thessaloniki begins at 18:30 EET (4.30pm GMT) at the Venizelos statue.

8.52am: Gregorz Kolodko, the former deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Poland, has come out firmly against the €130bn package today.

Kolodko, who now teaches at Kozminski University in Warsaw, is the latest senior politician to argue that Greeces’s economy cannot return to strong growth in the face the measures that are being piled on. Society is being pushed to its limits:

In three years of austerity Greece’s debt has risen from 113 per cent of gross domestic product to 163 per cent. Homelessness has jumped by 25 per cent. Unemployment has risen to 21 per cent, among the highest in the industrialised world, with 48 per cent of young people out of work. It is naïve to think they will watch TV, not demonstrate or fight in the streets. This policy is senseless.

Kolodko advocates wiping out 80% of Greece’s external debt, plus an EU loan at zero interest rate.:

The easiest solution would be for the European Central Bank to buy new issues of Greek government bonds, but its hyper-liberal statutes and German ethos will not allow it to do so. The ECB has off-balance sheet resources of €3.3tn, equivalent to the current value of its seigniorage. If it is only used properly, the issue of eurozone sovereign debt can be resolved.

The full comment piece is here.

8.41am: Europe’s stock markets opened flatly this morning, with the FTSE 100 down 9 points at 5919 in London. Other markets are more or less flat.

Traders say that the uncertainty over whether the Greek pacakge will a) be agreed, and b) work, means shares aren’t heading higher (despite the Dow Jones index hitting its highest level since 2008 last night)

Chris Weston of IG Index explained:

The sights of the market are firmly fixed on the level of private sector involvement and how the market will take the prospect of hedge funds or investment banks claiming insurance from their credit-default swaps held over Greek debt if they aren’t one of the potential 66% that are going to participate on a ‘voluntary’ basis.

We actually feel that the use of the CAC (collective action clauses) and subsequent triggering of CDS (credit default swaps) would not be that negative, and would show the system actually works.

8.27am: “Whatever eurozone finance ministers were smoking in their all-night marathon talks it must have been something strong”.

That’s the verdict of m’learned colleague Larry Elliott this morning. Our economics editor says that it’s theoretically possible that the rescue package. After all:

It is all so simple: for a new wonder economy to arise in the Aegean what has to happen is for Greece’s recession to end immediately, for the economy to have six consecutive years of strong growth from 2014 onwards; for the Greeks to submit to their eurozone partners’ humiliating terms; for the bailout to be given the thumbs-up by the sceptical parliaments in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, and for the assorted hedge funds, banks and insurers that make up Greece’s private-sector creditors to accept a 53% “haircut” on their investments.

And if that happens…. Greece will still have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 120%, the equivalent of Italy today.

Larry concludes that Greece will ultimately leave the euro. But, as IfigEusLannuon points out below, he doesn’t give a date. Any predictions?

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph’s Jeremy Warner is scathing about the Charles Dellara (or Doolally, as he dubs him), for suggesting that Greece will return to growth despite official forecasts showing that the country faces five years of austerity.

Unfortunately, growth is one of the many things the Greeks don’t have, and, according to the eurozone’s own analysis, are most unlikely to get – in large part as a direct result of the eurozone’s own policy prescription of never-ending austerity.

Mr Dallara must surely know that the plan is based on completely unrealistic economic assumptions, and therefore cannot succeed on the terms proposed.

8.15am: Greece’s two largest unions have organised demonstrations in Athens this afternoon, beginning at 4pm local time. I’ll blog more details in a moment.

On the economics front, we’re getting new data showing how the eurozone’s services and manufacturing sectors performed in January. France’s data is already out, showing a surprise upturn. Industrial orders data is also due.

In the UK, the Bank of England minutes will also show whether its Monetary Policy Committee was unanimous in expanding its quantitative easing programme by another £50bn this month.

Here’s today’s agenda:

• Bank of England minutes – 9.30am
• Eurozone manufacturing+services PMI data – 9am GMT / 10am CET
• Eurozone industrial New Orders – 10am GMT / 11am CET
• Demonstrations in Athens – from 2pm GMT / 4pm EET

8.00am: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone debt crisis.

Greecee is still top of the agenda today. Its €130bn financial assistance package may have been agreed yesterday morning, but a growing band of critics are questioning whether the plan will work.

Protests are expected on the streets of Athens today, at a demonstration organised by trade unions. That should show the depth of public anger over the plan, which will mean years of IMF-directed austerity for Greece.

With just nine days to secure the new package, Greece may also open its bond swap with private creditors today.

Source: Guardian

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it had failed to secure an agreement with Iran during talks over disputed atomic activities and that the Islamic Republic had rejected a request to visit a military site.

The failure of the two-day meeting may hamper any resumption of wider nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers and add to rising tension with the West, which has stepped up sanctions on the major oil producer in recent months.

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had hoped to inspect a site at Parchin, southeast of the capital Tehran, where the agency believes there is a containment chamber to test explosives, suggesting possible weapon development. Iran has denied the charge that it is developing nuclear weapons.

“During both the first and second round of discussions, the agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place,” the Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement.

“It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin. We engaged in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached,” said IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano.

Earlier, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the country’s ISNA news agency that Tehran expected to hold more talks with the U.N. agency, whose task it is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the world.

But Amano’s spokeswoman, Gill Tudor, made clear no further meetings were planned: “At this point in time there is no agreement on further discussions,” she said.

Iran rejects accusations that its nuclear program is a covert bid to develop a nuclear weapons capability, saying it is seeking to produce only electricity.

But its refusal to curb sensitive atomic activities which can have both civilian and military purposes, and its track record of years of nuclear secrecy has drawn increasingly tough U.N. and separate U.S. and European measures.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out using force against Iran if they conclude that diplomacy and sanctions will not stop it from developing a nuclear bomb.

In Washington, no immediate comment was available from the U.S. State Department on the IAEA statement.

STILL TIME FOR DIPLOMACY?

An IAEA report, published in November, suggested Iran had pursued military nuclear technology and helped precipitate the latest rounds of sanctions by the European Union and United States, which are causing economic hardship in Iran before a parliamentary election in March.

One key finding was information that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin in which to conduct high-explosives tests. The U.N. agency said there were “strong indicators of possible weapon development.”

The IAEA said intensive efforts had been made to reach agreement on a document “facilitating the clarification of unresolved issues” in connection with Iran’s nuclear program.

“Unfortunately, agreement was not reached on this document,” it said in an unusually blunt statement.

The IAEA mission’s lack of progress may have an impact on the chance of any resumption of wider nuclear negotiations between Iran and the six world powers, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany.

The West last week expressed some optimism at the prospect of new talks, particularly after Iran sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton promising to bring “new initiatives,” without stating preconditions.

But the United States and its allies may become more reluctant if they feel that the Islamic state is unlikely to engage in substantive discussions about its nuclear activities.

The deputy head of Iran’s armed forces was quoted on Tuesday as saying Iran would take pre-emptive action against its enemies if it felt its national interests were endangered.

“Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions,” Mohammad Hejazi told the Fars news agency.

In retaliation for oil sanctions, Iran, the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter, has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, conduit for a third of the world’s seaborne oil, while the United States signaled it would use force to keep it open.

The White House has said there was still time for diplomacy.

“Israel and the United States share the same objective, which is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said when asked about a weekend visit to Israel by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon.

Source: Reuters

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd resigned Wednesday, his office said, amid speculation that he might mount a leadership challenge to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The Australian media have been abuzz in recent days with reports that Rudd is considering contesting Gillard’s leadership of the governing Labor Party.

Observers predicted a showdown could take place next week when Parliament resumes and Rudd was due to return from an overseas trip. But his sudden announcement in Washington in the middle of the night caught people by surprise.

“We thought he was tucked up in bed,” said Angela Cox, a reporter for the Australian Channel 7 in the United States. “He called this late press conference, so we knew something must’ve been up. But I have to say most of us were pretty shocked when he actually said he was resigning as foreign minister.”

A spokeswoman for the foreign ministry confirmed Rudd had resigned in Washington.

This is not the first time the two senior Labor figures have clashed; Gillard replaced Rudd as prime minister in June 2010 after he lost support within the party.

Tension between them in recent weeks has boiled over into newspaper columns and criticism from other party officials.

“There have been lots of calls for the prime minister, Julia Gillard, to sack him because he’s been accused of disloyalty because of all of this speculation that he’s doing backroom deals trying to challenge Julia Gillard for the leadership,” Cox said. “He did say he felt compelled to do it today because he felt like he didn’t have the support of Julia Gillard.”

Gillard’s office declined to comment on the resignation.

Rudd has insisted that he wouldn’t be part of a “stealth attack” on Gillard, but his resignation doesn’t mean he is necessarily ruling out a leadership challenge altogether.

“Just because he resigned as foreign minister doesn’t mean he can’t still work the angles from the back bench,” Cox said.

Reporters asked him whether he planned to challenge Gillard, but he “didn’t give a strong response to that,” she said.

Rudd is considered responsible for bringing the Labor Party back from the wilderness. After 11 years in opposition, the party won office in November 2007 under his leadership.

After enjoying some of the highest popularity ratings of any Australian leader, Rudd’s poll numbers took a hit after he delayed his proposed carbon emissions trading scheme.

Gillard took over in 2010, but has struggled to achieve high approval ratings.

Source: cnn

Police don’t travel far to monitor the goings-on at the Gami Temple at the edge of the Tibetan plateau. The police station sits inside the monastery, just outside the gates to the main prayer hall.

Smothering security has become a fact of life in China’s Tibetan areas, from police stationed around monasteries to document checks at roadblocks. The heavy policing is driving some to radical acts to protest Chinese rule.

Most dramatically, at least 21 Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year. The immolations have set off a cycle of further repression that in turn has touched off large-scale protests in recent weeks. Some turned into deadly clashes between protesters and police.

Intense security is one reason Tibet’s exiled government in India called on Tibetans this year to shun celebrations for their traditional new year, which started Wednesday. Instead, Tibetans are urged to pray for those living under Chinese rule.

“The threats and Chinese policies and Chinese military in Tibet are becoming more abusive,” said Kanyag Tsering, a monk who left China 13 years ago for exile in India. He has become a channel for information from his home, Aba, a corner of Sichuan province where many of the immolations have occurred and which roadblocks and squads of riot and paramilitary police have effectively sealed off to foreigners.

One of the latest to self-immolate was an 18-year-old Buddhist monk in Aba whom Kanyag Tsering and another exiled monk said shouted blessings to their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, and “Freedom for Tibet” when he lit himself on fire on Sunday.

In Lhasa, the capital of Chinese-controlled Tibet, fears ran high in recent days with a bigger police presence and officials calling on individual Tibetan homes, said the International Campaign for Tibet. Hundreds of Tibetans returning home were detained after attending teachings by the Dalai Lama in India, adding to anxieties, the Washington-based lobbying group said.

Photos of Lhasa dated Saturday and posted Tuesday on the blog of Tibetan writer Woeser showed columns of marching troops, an armored personnel carrier and police checking passengers on a bus.

“The continuing attack on the Dalai Lama and separatist troublemakers, greater surveillance of monasteries and nunneries, heavy military and security presence — all these mean that China is prepared to rule Tibetans through force,” said Dibyesh Anand of the University of Westminster in London. That determination, he said, is radicalizing Tibetans.

Behind the distress lies a fear that the Tibetan identity, so tied to their faith, is under threat. After more than a half-century of at times heavy-handed Chinese rule, Beijing is accelerating a policy of religious control, repression and economic inducements.

The program, affirmed at a top-level meeting in 2010, aims to extinguish Tibetans’ devotion to the Dalai Lama through forced denunciations, to deter protests through heavy policing and to raise living standards by pumping in investment that has brought double-digit growth rates but also Chinese migrants.

Monasteries, which for Tibetans are akin to universities, have become occupied ground, with police and officials moving in alongside monks.

At the Gami monastery complex, which hugs a wind-lashed hillside of pine at 10,500-feet (3,100-meters), police watched earlier this month as monks dressed in demon masks and colorful robes performed a purification dance for the new year before an audience of mostly well-dressed, older farmers and herders. When thousands of Tibetans circled a sacred mountain behind the temple in another new year ritual, police watched the paths.

Checkpoints dot the roads, though the area is 300 miles (500 kilometers) to the northeast of the recent troubles. The temple itself does not belong to one of Tibetan Buddhism’s main schools, but is Bon, a pre-Buddhist sect, and the area has not had a history of large-scale demonstrations in recent decades.

Security weeds out foreign journalists, who were followed on a recent visit by uniformed and plainclothes security and ordered not to report in the area. But it’s also directed at Tibetans.

Monks in particular are being closely scrutinized and need to produce identification and sometimes letters of explanation to travel outside the immediate environs of their monasteries, according to people in Sichuan and overseas Tibet groups.

Kanyag Tsering decided to flee Kirti, Aba’s most prominent monastery in 1998, when the first denunciation campaigns hit. This year, he said, several hundred political instructors and other officials moved into Kirti “to monitor everything that is going on” during an important festival. The number of monks, he said, has fallen to around 2,000, from more than 2,500.

Heavier security and tighter religious controls have seemed to fueled protests, rather than quell them. Robbie Barnett, a Tibet expert at Columbia University, said that security spending in Tibetan areas of Sichuan began soaring above that in non-Tibetan areas in 2006 and reached four times the average by 2009. Yet in 2008, the largest uprising against Chinese rule in 50 years occurred. Swarms of security came to the region and never left.

“Roughly speaking, China now seems to be facing increasingly cohesive discontent across an area twice the size of that it faced 10 or 15 years ago,” said Barnett.

Despite attempts by authorities to stifle information, including shutting some communities’ phone and Internet service, the immolators have become heroes. Accounts and snippets of their acts, usually captured by mobile phones, have circulated by Internet, instant messaging, homemade DVDs, foreign shortwave radio broadcasts and even posters.

Kanyag Tsering and other exiled activists said sometimes calls from public phones manage to get information of an immolation or a protest out quickly. More often, however, word seeps out days later, as people smuggle mobile phone images out of cordoned-off areas.

The government has signaled no intention of changing tacks. A senior official overseeing policy on Tibet, Vice Minister Zhu Weiqun of the United Front Department, called this month for full-throttle assimilation of minorities through migration, economic development and the spread of Mandarin.

“Our policy orientation should conform to this trend and deepen this trend so that it is irreversible,” Zhu wrote in the Study Times, the newspaper of the Communist Party’s top training academy.

Source: Time

Sony’s new handheld console – the Playstation Vita – is set to launch in Europe on Wednesday.

The device launched in Japan last Christmas and Sony say more than half a million units have now been sold.

It will be a rival to Nintendo’s 3DS, boasting a quad-core processor and 5in (12.7cm) OLED touch screen.

However, it is entering a competitive market as mobile casual gamer space becomes increasingly dominated by game applications for smartphones.

Two different versions of the device will go on sale: a model with wi-fi connectivity for £229 and an enhanced version that also uses the 3G mobile network.

Johnny Minkley, from video gaming website Eurogamer, said the Vita was “the most competent handheld gaming system ever made”, but he believed price would be an issue.

“It is a high-end device and Sony has shot itself in the foot with the proprietary memory cards, which is an added expense which everyone needs to make on day one,” he added.

When Nintendo launched its 3DS system last year, sales were poor, forcing the company to slash 40% of the price, despite critical acclaim.

It was not until games such as Mario Kart were launched that sales of the 3DS started to pick up.

In contrast, the Vita will have 30 different games available at launch. Some will be full-price commercial titles, while others are third-party downloads priced at under £10.

The device has had mostly positive response from the gaming media. Tech Radar gave it four-and-a-half stars out of five and said it took “gaming to a new level”.

However, CNet gave it an distinctly average three out of five stars and said it was “bulky with an unimpressive battery life”.

The site added: “All but the most hardcore gaming nuts would be better served by something like the iPod touch.”

Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Europe, told the BBC the device would stand out among smartphones and tablets.

“Gaming on the smartphone and tablet is a reality and it would be foolish to stick our heads in the sand,” he said.

“We have to demonstrate that our device and the gaming experience is differentiated and we provide great value to justify the financial outlay they have to make to buy into Vita.”

Piers Harding Rolls, an analyst with Screen Digest, said CNet had highlighted a problem that, longer term, Sony may have to face up to.

“There are plenty of other devices out there offering games content, so the market is very competitive.

“Our sales figure prediction is not a small amount by any means, but if you compare it to smartphones, it is but a subset,” he added.

Sony said that, for the first two years, it would be targeting its core demographic: 18 to 25-year-old males who were gamers first and foremost.

“When we get to year two and year three, we will try to broaden the demographic to bring in the younger consumer – the more casual consumer, perhaps,” said Mr Ryan.

How Sony will achieve that remains to be seen.

“Many people have smartphones so already have games on the move,” said Mr Minkley.

“The biggest questionmark is, who is it for, outside of gamers. Where does Vita fit in? Right now, I really don’t know.”

Source: Independent

The West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, who is scheduled to meet the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, today, would discuss various issues ranging from the Teesta water treaty with Bangladesh to the controversial counter-terror intelligence hub, a Trinamool Congress leader said Tuesday, reports Hindustan Times in Kolkata.

The meeting between Manmohan Singh and Banerjee comes at a crucial political juncture when Banerjee had repeatedly upped the ante against various polices of the central government, where they are in an alliance.

‘Mamatadi will discuss various issues with the prime minister. But the issues which will top the agenda will be NCTC, Teesta Treaty with Bangladesh, Farakka Barrage water sharing treaty and financial aid to Bengal,’ said a party MP, who did not want to be named.

The deal for sharing of Teesta water which flows from north West Bengal to Bangladesh could not be finalised during Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka in September last year due to Banerjee’s opposition that the proposed pact gave a greater share to Dhaka than earlier agreed upon by the central and state governments. Banerjee also argued that she was not shown the draft of the treaty.

Recently Banerjee had severely criticised and had joined her counterparts from Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Bihar and other states in opposing the just approved National Counter Terrorism Centre, a brainchild of the union home minister, P Chidambaram.

The relationship between Congress and Trinamool has been going through a rough patch for last few months after Trinamool — with its 20 MPs in the Lok Sabha and six MPs in the Rajya Sabha — had repeatedly threatened the Congress-led UPA over the issue of out of turn financial package and interest holiday to debt-ridden Bengal.

The issue of over 80,000 cusec water flowing to Bangladesh after sluice gates broke at the Farakka Barrage and resulting in the decrease of river Bhagirathis’ water level, will also come up at the meeting.

The Trinmool MP confirmed that the issue of fast implementation of the tripartite agreement of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration will be deliberated upon by the two

leaders.

During her visit to Siliguri earlier this month,

Banerjee had blamed the central government for the delay in implementing the tripartite autonomy agreement.

Source: New Age

Some 20 million cubic feet gas is going to be added to the national grid as lifting and supply of gas from Fenchuganj-4 well is being launched on Wednesday.

“All preparations through experimental lifting and supply have ended. We hope that the supply will start around 2:30pm,” Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (BAPEX) managing director Murtaza Ahmed Faruque told bdnews24.com.

Source: BD news 24

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged Bangladeshis living abroad to mobilise global opinion in favour of making Bangla as one of the official languages at the United Nations.

She made the call while inaugurating a three-day programme marking the Language Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day, 2012 held at the International Mother Language Institute in the capital.

Hasina said the government is trying its best to make Bangla as one of the official languages at the United Nations, and she herself had already placed a proposal to this end before the UN General Assembly.

The premier said International Mother Language Day “calls us all to become world citizens by being respectful to everyone. All countries and people of all languages will benefit by bearing this spirit. And this will lead to unity in diversity.”

This year the theme of the day is ‘Mother tongue instruction and inclusive education’.

Hasina said the aim of her government is to build the Bengali nation as science-oriented and technology-efficient. “We have created scopes for extensive use of Bangla in all spheres of science… it is easier to impart education and acquire knowledge in mother tongue.”

As part of the efforts to build digital Bangladesh by 2021, Hasina said, the government has made the installation of full-fledged Bangla key pads in basic mobile handsets mandatory, beginning this month.

Besides, initiatives have been taken to formulate the second country coded internet domain dotbangla, apart from dotbd (.bd), she said.

The premier also mentioned that all those countries, which have advanced in the innovation of information technologies, used their mother languages in their applications.

Hasina said her government has taken an initiative to use Bengali in information technology. “Even the rural people can now take the e-services.”

She recalled the contributions of language martyrs Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, Jabbar and others. She also reminisced about the role of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as he had been imprisoned several times while leading the language movement.

The premier said the movement had opened up the path for the preservation and flourishing of Bengali language, culture, non-communal philosophy of life, democratic ideology, and human values.

“These expectations were fulfilled through the Liberation War in 1971, but that did not last long. After the assassination of Bangabandhu with most of his family members in 1975, a process was initiated to return the country to its pre-liberation state,” she observed.

“We have restored the spirit of the Liberation War through the (15th) amendment to the constitution,” she said.

Bangladesh first placed formal proposal to Unesco in September 1999 to name February 21 as International Mother Language Day. Unesco then recognised the day as International Mother Language Day on November 17, 1999.

Thus, the February 21 has become the day for protecting the rights of languages of different ethnic people of the world, she said.

The prime minister also said the government has taken steps to turn the International Mother Language Institute into an international organisation.

Prof Emeritus Dr Rafiqul Islam presented a paper titled ‘Ekusher Rin’ at the ceremony.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, Zinnat Imtiaz Ali, director general of International Mother Language Institute, among others, were present.

Source: Daily Star

Margaret Howell, Marios Schwab, Mulberry, Vivienne Westwood and Topshop Unique were among the shows which marked day three of London fashion week autumn/winter 2012.

Margaret Howell

There was lots of boyish tailoring and a grey wool suit that had something of the Charlie Chaplins about it.

Marios Schwab

Marios Schwab loves a femme fatale. In his show notes he alluded to ‘dressing this haunting, mysterious and unknown character’

Source: Guardian