In the News
Hasina sworn-in as Bangladesh PM for second time
Sheikh Hasina
Dhaka, (IANS) — Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the nation's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was sworn in as prime minister of Bangladesh for a second time Tuesday following her landslide victory in last month's general election. She was premier previously 1996-2001.
Hasina, 61, took the oath of office from President Iajuddin Ahmed at the ceremony held at Darbar Hall in Bangabhavan, the presidential palace.
The nine-party Grand Alliance led by her Awami League won 259 seats of the 299 that figured in Bangladesh's ninth general election. The Awami League (AL) alone won 230 seats.
The poll left Hasina's main political rival Begum Khaleda Zia with only 29 seats and Zia's Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) with two. There were four independent winners. The country has a 300 seat parliament. Polling for one was postponed due to the death of a candidate.
Khaleda Zia and her key associates did not attend the sweatring-in of Hasina, her arch-rival. Zia sent a five-member delegation to the oath-taking ceremony.
Sheikh Hasina's ministers who too were sworn-in at the ceremony were: Abul Maal Abdul Muhit, Matia Chowdhury, Air Vice-Marshal (retd) A.K. Khandker, Abdul Latif Siddiqui, Shafique Ahmed, Shahara Khatun, Syed Ashraful Islam, Rezaul Karim Hira, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Abul Kalam Azad, Dipu Moni, Afsarul Amin, Abdur Razzak, Syed Abul Hossain, Col (retd) Farooq Khan, G.M. Quader, Romesh Chandra Sen, Dilip Barua, Raziuddin Raju, Enamul Haque Mostafa Shahid, Nurul Islam Nahid, Abdul Latif Biswas and A.F.M. Ruhul Haque.
A day before being sworn in, Hasina was acquitted by a Dhaka court in a case of corruption instituted against her by the outgoing caretaker government.
Hasina, 61, took the oath of office from President Iajuddin Ahmed at the ceremony held at Darbar Hall in Bangabhavan, the presidential palace.
The nine-party Grand Alliance led by her Awami League won 259 seats of the 299 that figured in Bangladesh's ninth general election. The Awami League (AL) alone won 230 seats.
The poll left Hasina's main political rival Begum Khaleda Zia with only 29 seats and Zia's Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) with two. There were four independent winners. The country has a 300 seat parliament. Polling for one was postponed due to the death of a candidate.
Khaleda Zia and her key associates did not attend the sweatring-in of Hasina, her arch-rival. Zia sent a five-member delegation to the oath-taking ceremony.
Sheikh Hasina's ministers who too were sworn-in at the ceremony were: Abul Maal Abdul Muhit, Matia Chowdhury, Air Vice-Marshal (retd) A.K. Khandker, Abdul Latif Siddiqui, Shafique Ahmed, Shahara Khatun, Syed Ashraful Islam, Rezaul Karim Hira, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Abul Kalam Azad, Dipu Moni, Afsarul Amin, Abdur Razzak, Syed Abul Hossain, Col (retd) Farooq Khan, G.M. Quader, Romesh Chandra Sen, Dilip Barua, Raziuddin Raju, Enamul Haque Mostafa Shahid, Nurul Islam Nahid, Abdul Latif Biswas and A.F.M. Ruhul Haque.
A day before being sworn in, Hasina was acquitted by a Dhaka court in a case of corruption instituted against her by the outgoing caretaker government.
Woman who set husband afire charged with murder
Rajini Narayan, 44, allegedly doused her husband Satish with a flammable liquid while he was sleeping December 8. Satish jumped out of bed after being set ablaze and knocked over the substance, causing the fire to spread.
Rajini told an Adeliade court that she wanted to punish her husband for his alleged infidelity and did not mean to kill him.
Rajini was initially charged with arson and endangering life, including those of her three children, who were in the house at the time. But the charge was upgraded to murder after Narayan succumbed to his injuries last week.
Lucy Boord, a prosecutor, said Rajini had confessed to her neighbours, telling them she was a "jealous wife" and believed her husband was having an affair.
"I just wanted to burn his penis so it belongs to me and no one else. I didn't mean this to happen," Boord quoted Rajini as saying.
The fire damaged the couple's house estimated at one million Australian dollars.
Rajini is being held in custody pending the results of a psychological assessment.
Can signs from nature presage ecological disaster
The idea of using leading indicators in science is not new. Geologists use seismic indicators to try to predict earthquakes and physicians use measures of such things as cholesterol and blood pressure to try to predict patient health.
But applying the same tools and yardsticks to forecast the health of ecosystems and, ultimately, to prevent serious ecological harm is only now coming into play, said Stephen R. Carpenter, University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) professor of zoology and co-author of the new study.
The study, by two ecologists and an economist, suggests it may be possible to use nature's leading indicators to avert environmental disaster.
Ecosystems worldwide, comprising lakes, ocean fisheries, coral reefs, forests, wetlands and rangelands, are under constant and escalating pressure from humans and many are on the brink of collapse, said Carpenter.
"It's a big problem because they are very hard to predict. It is hard to get a handle on statistically," said Carpenter of what ecologists call "regime shift," a disastrous change in the way an individual ecosystem functions.
Such change can be dramatic, as in the collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery or increasing desertification in Africa and the Middle East, and can have serious economic, political and social consequences.
In the new study, Carpenter, Reinette Biggs of Stockholm University and William A. Brock, an economist at UW-M, used northern Wisconsin's sport fishery as a lab to see if leading indicators of ecological collapse can be detected far enough in advance to avert disaster.
"The answer is 'yes' if the policy interventions can be swift and 'no' if there are delays," said Carpenter of the study's results, according to a UW-M release.
These findings were published on Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.