Govt mulls writing WB to settle Padma bridge financing

Finance Minister AMA Muhith said on Thursday the government is considering writing to the World Bank chief to settle the issue of the Padma bridge project financing.

“The government is now discussing about the strategy and content of the letter,” the finance minister told reporters at his Secretariat office in the morning.

The minister's comment on the latest development of the Padma bridge project came when Xiaoyu Zhao, the vice president (operations 1) of Asian Development Bank, met Muhith at his office Thursday.

Earlier, highly placed sources said the government hoped that the WB president would settle the Padma bridge financing issue before he ends his tenure with the institution in June.

Another official said earlier the government has also been negotiating with several officials of the USA, the major shareholder of the WB, so that the lending agency settles the issue quickly.

Besides that, the government has also been continuing talks through the WB executive director who represents Bangladesh and some other South Asian countries.

An official at the WB Dhaka office said earlier if the Canadian government report does not support the corruption allegation, the issue might be settled soon.

In another development, the Canadian government is likely to submit to the WB the findings of an investigation into the alleged corruption in appointing consulting firm for the mega bridge project by this month, a finance ministry official said.

The WB in August last year postponed its $1.2 billion fund for the $2.9 billion Padma bridge project on graft allegations.

In January, the institution increased the loan effectuation deadline by six months for the second time.

On Wednesday, the finance minister after a meeting with Li Jun, new Chinese ambassador to Dhaka, stressed that the government wants to finalise the agreement by October this year and start the project work by November no matter whether the financier is the WB or any country.

The Padma bridge is one of the main election pledges of the present government.

Indian rail minister denies reports of resignation

Indian Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Thursday denied media reports on his resignation hot on the heels of his party Trinamool Congress chief’s demand for sacking him after had hiked passenger train fare.

Trivedi however made it clear that he would resign the moment Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee asks him to do, our New Delhi correspondent reports.

Trivedi said he would have to answer questions in the parliament on Thursday and he would be doing that.

“I will not leave my duty,” he told Bengali news channel Star Ananda when asked about media reports that he had already resigned. Trivedi is a lawmaker of Trinamool Congress.

The minister said either the Prime Minister or Mamata Banerjee has to tell him to resign. “It will not take me a minute to go,” he said.

His remarks to media persons outside the parliament Thursday morning came hours after Mamata faxed a letter to the prime minister demanding that industrialist-cum-politician Trivedi be dismissed and her trusted aide Mukul Roy be appointed as the new railway minister.

Mukul Roy is at present junior minister in the shipping ministry and was divested of his railway portfolio as junior minister last year.

Mamata’s letter to Singh came soon after Trivedi had effected an across-the-border hike in passenger train fare in the rail budget presented in the parliament, which drew strong condemnation from Trinamool Congress including the West Bengal chief minister.

“We cannot accept this rail fare hike. We will not allow the fare to be hiked,” Mamata told a public meeting at Nandigram in East Midnapore district Wednesday evening.

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that the prime minister had not received any resignation letter from Trivedi.

“As and when any new information comes and as and when appropriate action is taken, it will be shared with Parliament,” Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha Thursday morning in reply to questions from opposition BJP about Trivedi’s status.

The Prime Minister was quoted by Times Now news channel as saying that he might consider Mamata’s request for replacing Trivedi as and when something like this develops.

Meanwhile, Trivedi justified his budget on Wednesday in which he proposed a hike in passenger fare.

What he had done was in the interest of the railways and the country, he said, adding that he, as a disciplined soldier of the party, “will abide by whatever the leader says and the discipline of the party”.

Trivedi had said Wednesday that Mamata did not know that he was going to hike the rail fare.

In view of Mamata’s demand for replacing Trivedi, the top leaders of Congress, including the prime minister, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee, had a meeting among themselves late Wednesday night.

Congress sources said it was felt at that meeting that since Railway portfolio was with Trinamool Congress, the second biggest constituent of India’s ruling UPA with 19 members in Lok Sabha and providing crucial life-and-blood support to the coalition government, it was the prerogative of Mamata-led party to decide who will be the minister of that ministry.

This was the first time in eight years that a proposal was made to hike rail passenger fare to help tide over the acute fund constraint of India's biggest public sector undertaking that employs 1.4 million people.

Pollens of Past Gardens of Judah bloom

An ancient royal garden has come back into bloom in a way, as scientists have reconstructed what it would've looked like some 2,500 years ago in the kingdom of the biblical Judah.

Their reconstruction, which relied on analyses of excavated pollen, reveals a paradise of exotic plants.

The luxurious garden had been discovered at Ramat Rahel, an archaeological site located high above the modern city of Jerusalem, about midway between the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This site was inhabited since the last century of the Kingdom of Judah (seventh century B.C.) until the early Muslim reign in Palestine (10th century), a period that saw many wars and exchanges of power, with the garden evolving under each civilization.

Since excavators discovered the garden, they could only imagine its leafy, flowery inhabitants. That is until now.

The garden relied on an advanced irrigation system, which collected rainwater and distributed it using artsy water installations, including pools, underground channels, tunnels and gutters.

These water installations ended up being the key to the team's new discovery; the researchers found grains of pollen that likely got trapped in plaster when the installations were renovated and the plaster still wet. The result was preserved pollen grains.

In samples dating back to the Persian period (between the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.), the team found grains from local fruit trees, ornamentals and imported trees from distant lands.

"This is a very unique pollen assemblage," study researcher Dafna Langgut, a pollen expert at Tel Aviv University, said in a statement.

For instance, they found evidence of willow and poplar trees, which would have required irrigation to survive in the garden. They also found pollen associated with ornamentals, such as myrtle and water lilies; native fruit trees, including grape vine, common fig and olive; and imported citron, Persian walnut, cedar of Lebanon and birch trees. The researchers think the ruling Persian authorities likely imported these exotics from remote parts of the empire to flaunt their power.

Co2 The Culprit Marine ecosystems threatened

If carbon dioxide emissions don't begin to decline soon, the complex fabric of marine ecosystems will begin fraying and eventually unravel completely, two new studies conclude.

The diversity of ocean species thins and any survivors' health declines as the pH of ocean water falls in response to rising carbon dioxide levels, scientists from England and Florida reported February 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. What's more, affected species aren't restricted to those with shells and calcified support structures features particularly vulnerable to erosion by corrosive seawater.

Jason Hall-Spencer of the University of Plymouth, England, and his colleagues have been collecting data from marine sites off Italy, Baja California and Papua New Guinea, where high concentrations of carbon dioxide percolate out of the seabed from volcanic activity below. Directly above these CO2 seeps, pH plummets to at least 7.8, a value that is expected to occur widely by 2100 and which is substantially lower than the normal level for the area, 8.1. These sites offer a preview of what may happen to seafloor ecosystems as CO2 levels continue to rise, causing ocean water pH to drop.

Compared with nearby normal-pH sites, species richness in low-pH zones was diminished by 30 percent, Hall-Spencer reported. “Coral and some algae are gone. And the sea urchins are gone,” he said. Fish may be present, but unlike in areas with a normal pH, they won't deposit their eggs there.

Although seagrasses appear to survive just fine in the low-pH seawater, close inspection showed that fish had nibbled the fronds, Hall-Spencer found. He identified one likely explanation: At low pH, these grasses no longer produced the phenolic defense compounds that typically deter munching by grazing animals.

Did You Know? What does lightning do to the atmosphere?

There are lightning strikes somewhere on earth 100 times a second. And every time lightning strikes, it generates Ozone gas. This strengthens the Ozone Layer in the upper atmosphere you know, the one with the big hole that heightens our need for sunscreen.

A cloud to ground bolt of lightning carries between 100 million and 1 billion volts. It can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit 3-4 times hotter than the surface of the sun!

Water Worlds The wall of globes

Where in the world is all the water vapor? It may be hard to tell at first glance, but this wall of globes represents a simulation of monthly averaged distribution of total column water vapor on the planet. Such simulations are important, because understanding the distribution of water vapor on Earth is critical for understanding our planet's climate.

Going Natural Nepal's biogas success

Nepal is looking to scale up its flagship household biogas programme, which has made forays into other developing countries in Asia and Africa.

Initiated in 1992 with support from the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), Nepal has installed over 240,000 household biogas plants with a thermal energy capacity of 444 megawatts and greenhouse gas savings of 367,409 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

Biogas plants break down biodegradable matter to produce mainly methane. In Nepal, they are fed with cow dung and human waste and the output burned in cooking stoves, while the solid residue is used as farm fertiliser.

Nepal country director for SNV, Rem Neefjes, attributes the success of the programme to simple, uniform biogas technology and coordination among government, private sector and microfinance institutions.

Nepal's model has been replicated in various Asian countries, including Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, according to Khagendra Nath Khanal, assistant director at the Biogas Sector Partnership (BSP-Nepal).

"We are the second largest power generator in Nepal after hydropower," said Khanal.

Several African countries are benefiting from Nepal's experience, said Paul Hassing, senior advisor of the African initiative, Biogas for Better Life. "In terms of the level of marketing of the biogas sector, it is fair to say that Nepal is still some 10 years ahead of developments in certain African countries," Hassing said.

ET Hope Possibility of life on Europa

Scientists are strongly speculating (backed by the 1995 Galileo Spacecraft mission's findings) that Europa, the smallest of the four Galilean satellites and the 6th closest moon of the planet Jupiter house a liquid ocean underneath its solid icy crust. That cosmic mission discovered that underneath the icy crust of Europa, lies salty ocean which is kept warm by tidally generated heat and volcanic activities. It is believed that the biggest of Europa's craters are surrounded by concentric rings and these rings are likely to be filled with ice. And there is a possibility that this outer crust of ice is approximately 100km thick where only the top 10km are frozen solid which ushers the great possibility of the existence of a global ocean in a liquid form and at least 62 miles deep beneath these icy crust. And chances are, wherever there is water, there will be life. But what kind of life it would be in Europa that is a matter of great research. But some ideas are already there.

Since Europa's ocean lies quite a few miles beneath the icy crust, it is perceived that the way oxygen influences our existence here on Earth, is perhaps not the case with Europa due to liquid water's separation from atmospheric oxygen by several miles of chilling ice. But it has been proved that without oxygen, life could conceivably exist at hot springs deep in the ocean floor. Life in Europa could exist in its under-ice ocean, perhaps in a similar fashion to that of Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents or the Antarctic Lake Vostok, the largest of more that 140 sub-glacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. Up until 1970's, it was believed that Sun was absolutely essential for the existence of life. But in 1977, during a deep-sea exploration in the Galapagos Rift, scientists discovered flocks of giant tube worms, clams, crustaceans, mussels, and other various creatures gathered around undersea volcanic features known as black smokers and these aquatic creatures were found to have thrived despite having no access to sunlight, depending on an entirely independent food chain! Instead of usual plants, it was found that these unique species depended on a form of bacterium that itself gains its energy from oxidization of reactive chemicals, such as hydrogen o hydrogen sulfide, that bubbled up from the Earth's interior. And all of these provide a great deal of idea regarding how life could survive in Europa's ocean. If life can thrive here on Earth, without the aid of sunlight and in harshest of environments, then why not in Europa?

According to experts, life on Europa could exist clustered around hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, or below the ocean floor, where endoliths (an organism, e.g. lichen, alga or amoeba that lives inside rock, coral, animal shells or in the pores between mineral grains of a rock) are known to inhabit on Earth. Alternatively, it could exist clinging to the lower surface of the moon's ice layer, much like algae and bacteria in Earth's Polar Regions, or float freely in Europa's ocean. On the other hand, if Europa's ocean were too cold, biological processes similar to those known here on Earth, perhaps won't take place. Volcanic activity provides some of the heat necessary to keep the water on Europa from freezing and provides key dissolved chemicals required by the living organisms. If the water is too salty, only extreme halophiles (organisms that thrive in environments with very high concentrations of salt) could survive in its environment.

Researchers used their model to help explain the stresses that act on Earth's tectonic plates. Those stresses result in earthquakes not only at the boundaries between tectonic plates, where most earthquakes occur, but also in the plate interiors, where the forces are less understood.

Stony Brook University researchers have devised a numerical model to help explain the linkage between earthquakes and the powerful forces that cause them, according to a research paper scheduled to be published in the journal Science on Feb. 17. Their findings hold implications for long-term forecasting of earthquakes

William E. Holt, Ph.D., a professor in the Geosciences Department at Stony Brook University, and Attreyee Ghosh, Ph.D., a post doctoral associate, used their model to help explain the stresses that act on Earth's tectonic plates. Those stresses result in earthquakes not only at the boundaries between tectonic plates, where most earthquakes occur, but also in the plate interiors, where the forces are less understood, according to their paper, "Plate Motions and Stresses from Global Dynamic Models."

"If you take into account the effects of topography and all density variations within the plates -- the Earth's crust varies in thickness depending on where you are -- if you take all that into account, together with the mantle convection system, you can do a good job explaining what is going on at the surface," said Dr. Holt.

Their research focused on the system of plates that float on Earth's fluid-like mantle, which acts as a convection system on geologic time scales, carrying them and the continents that rest upon them. These plates bump and grind past one another, diverge from one another, or collide or sink (subduct) along the plate boundary zones of the world. Collisions between the continents have produced spectacular mountain ranges and powerful earthquakes. But the constant stress to which the plates are subjected also results in earthquakes within the interior of those plates.

"Predicting plate motions correctly, along with stresses within the plates, has been a challenge for global dynamic models," the researchers wrote. "Accurate predictions of these is vitally important for understanding the forces responsible for the movement of plates, mountain building, rifting of continents, and strain accumulation released in earthquakes."

Data for their global computer model came from Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements, which track the movements of Earth's crust within the deforming plate boundary zones; measurements on the orientation of Earth's stress field gleaned from earthquake faults; and a network of global seismometers that provided a picture of Earth's interior density variations. They compared output from their model with these measurements from Earth's surface.

"These observations -- GPS, faults -- allow one to test the completeness of the model," Dr. Holt said.

Drs. Ghosh and Holt found that plate tectonics is an integrated system, driven by density variations found between the surface of Earth all the way to Earth's core-mantle boundary. A surprising find was the variation in influence between relatively shallow features (topography and crustal thickness variations) and deeper large-scale mantle flow patterns that assist and, in some places, resist plate motions. Ghosh and Holt also found that it is the large-scale mantle flow patterns, set up by the long history of sinking plates, that are important for influencing the stresses within, and motions of, the plates.

Topography also has a major influence on the plate tectonic system, the researchers found. That result suggests a powerful feedback between the forces that make the topography and the 'push-back' on the system exerted by the topography, they explained.

While their model cannot accurately predict when and where earthquakes will occur in the short-term, "it can help at better understanding or forecasting earthquakes over longer time spans," Dr. Holt said. "Nobody can yet predict, but ultimately given a better understanding of the forces within the system, one can develop better forecast models."

Source: Science Daily

'Our publishers need to have editors'

Anisul Hoque is a versatile author -- with his repertoire covering novels, poetry, plays and even screenplay. Hoque, who is an assistant editor at the daily Prothom Alo, has also amassed a large fan following through his 'Godyo-Cartoon' articles.

This year, the writer has been honoured with the prestigious Bangla Academy Award, conferred on him for his contributions to literature. He received several other awards throughout his illustrious writing career, including the City Bank Anondo Alo Award, Khalekdad Chowdhury Award, Khulna Writers Club Award, Poet Mozammel Hoque Foundation Award, Sukanto Award and the Euro Children's Literature Award. He also received the Bachsas Award and Tenashinas Award as a playwright. The Daily Star caught up with the author.

How many books by you have been published at this year's Ekushey Book Fair?

Hoque: Three novels and a compilation of small stories have been published. Among the novels, Prothoma Prokash published “Jara Bhor Enechhilo”; Somoy Prokash published “Na Manushi Jomin” and “Bhalobasha Dot Com” was published by Pearl Publications. Kakoli Prokashoni meanwhile published the short stories, titled “Oshomapto Chumboner 19 Bochhor Por”. Besides, a selection of my regular newspaper articles under the columns 'Godyo-Cartoon' and 'Oronye Rodon' have been made into books. The titles are “Priyo Pathhok Ektu Hashun” and “Ei Bhalobashar Kono Maney Hoy Na”.

What is your reaction to winning the Bangla Academy Award?

Hoque: I'd say the award should've come earlier. But I can take consolation by looking at the other 9 recipients of the award who are all much senior to me, especially Abdullah Abu Sayeed Sir; Khalikuzzaman Ilias and my teacher from BUET, Ali Azgar Sir. I consider Abdullah Abu Sayeed to be my mentor. When I first started writing, I asked Sayeed Sir why he doesn't get awards. When my books started coming out, I thought to myself “who am I to get an award, when Sayeed Sir hasn't received one yet!”. Then he received the Magsaysay Award for literature -- which we consider to be the Nobel Prize of Asia. But still Bangla Academy did not award him. So I started hoping that maybe Sayeed Sir and I would get the award the same year. It is a dream fulfilled. Having the chance to share the same stage with him while receiving the award is consolation enough.

What do you think of this year's book fair?

Hoque: I've been coming to the fair since 1984-85. Compared to those times, Dhaka city and its population both have grown, but the space inside the Bangla Academy has shrunk. The fair used to stretch near the pond inside; but buildings have been erected at the spot. It is amazing how the authorities are being able to maintain the overwhelming pressure of the ever-growing literate crowd in the capital. I believe a good stall arrangement has given the fair a better vibe.

Do you feel that the fair space should be extended?

Hoque: I feel that such a small venue cannot accommodate a book fair in a city of 20 million. However, Somoy Prokashoni proprietor Farid Ahmed disagrees. I think the fair should be moved to a larger venue -- with better access and car parking facilities. It should be a book fair of international standards. The Bangla Academy premises lack these necessities. We should rise above our sentiments. An alternative can be holding the fair at separate venues simultaneously throughout the month of February. At least two venues -- for North and South Dhaka -- should host the fair.

What is your opinion on the abundance of publishers?

Hoque: I don't know why there are so many publishers in the country. The focus should be on the quality of books. Our publishers also need to have editors, which all international publishing houses have. The publishers in Bangladesh have achieved solvency, now they need to be professional.