Bankers fear slow loan payback from spinners

Low-Cost Indian Yarn Imports Threatening Local Mills

writes Sajjadur Rahman in THE DAILY STAR of February 5, 2009

Bankers fear random import of low-cost yarn from neighbouring India will cost them heavily by making their clients defaulted. Banks have also tightened their grip on new lending to this sector to see the bad time of the industry, which had a consistent growth for the past one decade, bankers said. “Payment from the spinning millers is getting slowed,” said Ali Reza Iftekhar, managing director and chief executive officer of Eastern Bank. He said banks are in a threat because they have huge exposure in spinning mills, which are capital-intensive industries.

“We are in great uncertainty. Immediate steps are needed to address the issue,” said Shahjahan Bhuiyan, managing director of United Commercial Bank. Bhuiyan said about Tk 60,000 crore are involved in the textile sector spinning, knitting, dyeing and import of raw materials required for the industries.

The ongoing global recession has already caught up with the country’s yarn industry with substantial fall in its local and export demands and a pile up of a huge amount of unsold yarn.

Easy access to import the item from India at a cheaper rate has made the local millers more worried.

According to industry people presently the Tk 27,000 crore spinning mills of the country are struggling with an inventory of 2.5 lakh tonnes of yarn worth Tk 2,500 crore that millers failed to sell for a demand decline and a flood of comparatively low cost yarn from India. Manufacturers are now importing Indian yarn at 15 to 20 cents per pound lower rate than that of locally produced yarn.

Bangladesh’s commercial banking sector comprising 30 private banks, nine foreign banks and four state-owned banks has financed a lot to develop the country’s textile industry. They have financed setting up of about 350 spinning mills in the country to supply yarn for manufacturing woven and knit garments. Banks also fund to import raw materials for the spinners. “About Tk 60,000 crore bank finance are involved with the whole industry spinning, dyeing, knitting and import of raw materials,” Shahjahan Bhuiyan said. Bhuiyan said many of their clients couldn’t finance bank payment due to poor
sale of the yarn produced locally. “Now local yarn producers are forced to sell their product at a lower rate for their survival,” Ali Reza Iftekhar said. He said Bangladesh’s yarn is better in quality than the Indian product.

“Immediate corrective measures are needed, otherwise the industry will be in great difficulty,” the EBL chief executive remarked. A senior official in Janata Bank, which has huge exposure in the sector, also admitted the fear. “Local industry will have benefited if the government did not allow low-cost Indian yarn,” the official who requested not to be named said.

From the Editor: Government should be mindful of the trends in this and other industries. Global recessions will be a great set back to exports and consequential unemployments. India will continue to treat Bangladesh as their captive market to dump low-quality products, particularly in the textile and garments sector, to reduce competition in RMG exports. Indian inroads into capital and consumer market of Bangladesh and now government’s overly enthusiasm toward a significant competetor should be kept under active scrutiny by competent economists and planners. However, Bankers need to be more cautious in financing suspect spinners.

The greater rift within Palestinians

The conflict between Fatah and Hamas disguises a more dangerous divide that threatens the very existence of the PLO, argues Nicola Nasser who is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit in occupied Palestine, writing in Al-Ahram Weekly of September 4-10, 2008.

The current rift between Fatah and Hamas, each dominating a government, one in the West Bank and the other in Gaza, is being used to cover up the promotion of an older and more dangerous divide. I am speaking, here, of the division between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its frame of reference, the Palestine Liberation Organistion (PLO), and of a power struggle between two factions within Fatah over leadership and roles of the PA and PLO. This power struggle is facilitating the real US-Israeli sponsored “coup” that is currently in progress in the Palestinian political arena. However, this coup will determine the outcome of the dialogue between Fatah and Hamas and the future of other crucial issues.

The Fatah-Hamas and PA-PLO divisions have given rise to a “third” force that has yet to assume an overt political framework. However, its principles and policies are clear: they overlap with, if they are not identical to, the US-Israeli “vision” for an end to the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This force, whose constituent elements intersect with a trend within Fatah and factions in the PLO, is keen to fuel both divisions, as it is the sole beneficiary of their perpetuation. As it manoeuvres between the two sides, it wrests a little more ground for itself every day. It, not Fatah, is now the third force. It effectively controls the PA in Ramallah as it strives to assert its control over all decision-making centres in Fatah, the PA and the PLO while simultaneously working to perpetuate the political, military and economic blockade against Hamas because it does not yet have the capacities to infiltrate its ranks in Gaza. In short, it is engaged in a stealthy bid to commandeer the Palestinian national movement.

The most recent example of the power struggle and the most tangible proof of the drive to annex the PLO to the PA, which derives its authority wholly from the Israeli occupation’s military governor, is the PA’s decision that its approval, and that of President Abbas, is a necessary condition for the paying of salaries to its employees. Some had expected this development to take place much sooner, cautioning that it would be the logical result of the PA’s Ministry of Finance taking over the PLO’s Palestinian National Fund’s function of financing the PLO, thereby effectively subordinating the will of the PLO to that of its PA paymasters and, hence, to the dictates of the occupation power.

Fatah’s internal problems also impeded the implementation of the Cairo agreement of 2005 which set out to “stimulate” the PLO. Instead of promoting the agreement the dynamics of the internal Fatah rift have seen the increased marginalisation of the PLO since Oslo. The campaign has now been escalated in an attempt by one side to eliminate its Fatah adversaries from the PLO. Whether or not it is an avowed aim, the drive may lead to the collapse of the PLO, which would automatically put paid to the Cairo agreement and preclude any practical opportunities for a dialogue with Hamas and, hence, for the revival of national unity.

The current inverse relationship between the PA and the PLO flies in the face of the clear decision adopted by the Palestinian Central Committee in its meeting in Tunisia on 10-12 October 1993 to establish a Palestinian National Authority subordinate to the PLO framework that founded it. This placing of the cart before the horse places the entire PLO in jeopardy, which may well be the ultimate aim of the US-Israeli alliance which is encouraging and financing the PA’s power bid within the PLO in the hope of precipitating an irreparable rupture in the PLO and, ultimately, the demise of the internationally recognised “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

Ironically, it is now Hamas that appears the only force capable of rescuing the PLO from these US-Israeli designs which seek to allow this “third force”, bred from within the PA, to overshadow other parties. Hamas is not a member of the PLO, yet it is currently one of the most ardent advocates of breathing new life into the organisation on the basis of the principle of partnership and in accordance with the Cairo agreement.

To make matters worse, the current PA government is the weakest of all its predecessors. The only thing that keeps it afloat is its willingness to comply to the letter with the dictates and conditions of the occupation authority and the PA’s donors. The government’s economic agenda is set by donors who hold the purse strings that pay civil service salaries while its security agenda is set by the three-member committee of American generals consisting of William Frazer, James Jones and Keith Dayton. It is this committee that is the PA government’s real frame of reference and its priorities are to eliminate all opposition to the US-Israeli vision for a solution to the conflict, starting with the ranks of Fatah and the PLO and, of course, Hamas.

The current PA government is also the least representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas disputed its legitimacy from the outset. It has no support among the factions allied with Fatah within the PLO framework. Nor does it have support from Fatah itself, specifically from the Fatah central committee which appointed all previous governments. This government’s only basis of legitimacy resides in the fact that its head was appointed by an elected president who is nearing the end of his term of office. Perhaps this is the reason that the occupation power is rounding up Hamas’s parliamentary deputies. That way the legislative assembly will remain suspended, because if it were to resume session it would dispel the last remnant of the government’s legitimacy.

WHO IS THE VICTIM?

Only exit from Gaza is death writes Dan Lieberman - Third World Network Features

Gresham’s Law briefly states “Bad money drives out good money.” A corollary has: “Bad news analysis drives out good news analysis.” Reports and dialogues on the events in Gaza give the impression that a mighty Hamas has wantonly attacked Israel, pulverized its southern cities with missiles and a patient Israel ran out of patience and finally retaliated.
The drama has subtext; undisclosed reasons for Israel’s attack, un-stated significance of the escalated conflict, and a non-clarified future for its final denouement. Search the entire landscape and we encounter happenings beyond the horizon. Missing from the debate are the disastrous consequences to the world community due to Israel’s aggressive actions.
Media references to President-elect Barack Obama’s July 2008 speech during a visit to Israel in which he stated, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing,” incorrectly inferred he was speaking in late December 2008.?
If the? president-elect expressed himself in late December 2008, he might have said: “If my land was being blockaded so that my children were being impoverished and intermittently starved, their parents unable to find employment, all of them caged in a fenced area and not permitted to fish, fly or travel more than a few miles, while supersonic planes disturbed each night of their sleep and created a daily fear of a military incursion that could kill them, I would do everything to stop that and expect the Palestinians to do the same?” He could add, “I certainly would refrain from making things worse and ask for a continuation of the truce,” which is what Hamas did.
The media has not properly related the fact that Hamas did not stop the truce; the truce expired and not solely due to Hamas.
In order to continue the truce, Hamas issued two responsible demands (1) Israel halt its devastating economic blockade of Gaza, and (2) Israel observe a truce in the West Bank as well as Gaza. When Israel refused to meet these humanitarian demands, Hamas refused to continue the truce, an event Israel, who reluctantly agreed to the first truce, knew would happen.
During the years 2001-2007, the PLO and Fatah, who controlled Gaza, fired unguided rockets and mortars at Israel and increased the launching numbers each year. Those same years witnessed Israeli incursions into Gaza that destroyed Palestinian infrastructure; Arafat’s headquarters, airport, roads, factories, homes and also lives. Sanctions and a crippling blockade followed the mayhem. So, why did Israel accuse Hamas of incitement and escalate its punishment when the pattern had been the same for years? Did Israel welcome the aggressive behaviour so its military could have reasons for more aggressive retaliation? Certainly seems that way. In addition to the casualties, the shocking Israeli actions have had a disastrous political consequence.
The Bush administration heralded a new dawn for a Middle East that was willing to accept the democratic process. The Palestinians responded with the election of Hamas to authority. And what happened? Hamas faced a “heads” you lose and a “tails” you cannot win game, engineered by the Western democracies. If Hamas remained out of the political process, its cadres might have been routinely attacked. By being part of the democratic process and winning an election, Hamas and the Palestinians have been pulverized, which informs the Arab world and its Islamic organizations: No matter what you do, whether you stay out of the political process or enter the political process, you will be pulverized. What behaviour can we expect from people who know they are going to be pulverized? Noting the decimation of Hamas after its application of Bush’s concept of democratic participation, won’t they react more aggressively? Due to Israel’s aggressive attacks, the world can expect to suffer increases in terrorism and rebellion. Jewish communities will be targeted. Without neglecting the intensive killing, this is the major derogatory result of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The launching of 200 unguided rockets and mortars to Israel, although they did not inflict human damage and did not have Hamas’ name on them - the projectiles are fired by several militant organizations - is inexcusable. Isn’t there a question here that demands an answer? Why were projectiles that inflicted no great damage fired into Israeli territory? Showing potential force without inflicting damage signals a threat. The strong signal intends to force an adversary to a negotiating table for a compromising truce and serves as a call to the world to note the seriousness of the situation. Why didn’t Israel try some form of negotiation, some form of indirect contact that would have not compromised Israel security? Would it not have made its people more secure by signifying it did not intend to suffocate the Palestinians with an illegal embargo and was willing to compromise? Why didn’t the world bodies immediately intervene and propose a compromise that would ameliorate the explosive situation? The reason: Nobody recognizes Hamas and therefore won’t talk with the authority. Result: The only other route to resolve the situation is violence and casualties.
An honest presentation would include the observation that the initial 200 launches after the “truce” ended caused no human damage and insignificant physical damage. Nevertheless, more emphasis has been given to artillery shells that damaged Israeli sidewalks than those that tore apart the bodies of 250 Palestinians. Videos show the rockets from Gaza mainly puncture without generating much explosive power. Secondary damage results from shrapnel and some structure collapse. A single Israeli missile has reduced buildings and their occupants to dust. Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, January 2, 2009, verified the observations:?
“The threat that Hamas’ ballistic capabilities pose to the people of the Negev (in Israel) is less serious than initially presumed and the residents of the targeted areas are not demonstrating signs of panic, according to an interim analysis by the Israel Defence Forces of the situation nearly a week after the launching of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.”
Too often, we have mendacious and “plugged in” reports, such as that from Bob Joseph of CNN. From a CNN transcript:
BOB JOSEPH, REPORTER: As strategically targeted as Israel is, because of what Hamas is doing and because of them putting their missiles in playgrounds, near schools and hospitals, they have created an environment where they ensure that some civilians can get hurt. And what they target themselves is, they target children and schools and hospitals. That is what makes Hamas the most evil entity-one of the most evil entities on this planet.
According to Bob Joseph, rockets and mortars that have no guidance system or explosive power and have not struck any hospitals or playgrounds and might have slightly damaged one school, are targeted missiles. Israel’s massive number of well guided missiles that have hit universities, mosques, UN schools, children playing in fields and apartment buildings are not evil and are excusable.
In one attack on a UN school, The Guardian, 6 January 2009, reports:
“The civilian death toll in Gaza increased dramatically today, with reports of more than 40 Palestinians killed after missiles exploded outside a UN school where hundreds of people were sheltering from the continuing Israeli offensive.”
Israel insists that mortars were being launched from the school courtyard. Despite the threat and charged emotions, wouldn’t a humane invading military exercise care before sending shells into a school because some person was supposedly shooting from a schoolyard adjacent to where hundreds of innocent persons had taken shelter? Israel has lowered the bar to where completely one-sided warfare that includes harming and terrifying innocent civilians to any limit becomes acceptable. A world composed of maddening leaders has now made us all potential victims to any transgression on the all powerful.
Israel, for 60 years, has used security considerations as a reason for warfare and has not gained security.’ Either Israel is using the wrong tactics to achieve security or security is a cover for other objectives. Considering that Israelis, most of whom only arrived in the last 40 years, live prosperously while Palestinians who tilled the land for generations live at subsistence levels, something must be skewed in the debate of who is doing what to whom. A militarily and economically strong Israel, which shows no damage to its infrastructure or property, poses as the victim, while the militarily and economically futile Palestine territory, which has had its infrastructure and property expropriated and often reduced to rubble by Israeli attacks, is labelled the aggressor.??
Hamas might be an obstacle to peace, but the organization is not the principal obstacle. The principal impediments to peace are the illegal occupation and settlements, seizures of Palestinians lands, abusive checkpoints and the blockade of Gaza. Does Israel have a security problem that can only be ameliorated by overpowering military force or is Israel using security considerations as an opportunity to humble the Palestinian people before consolidating its territorial gains and expansionist aims?
Every day it becomes clearer that the Gaza engagement is only a stage in Israel’s testing of new weapons and new strategies for its predictable battles with Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and who knows who else. Israel has more serious enemies then all other nations combined. The attack on Gaza explains that situation. We await endless wars by an apparent out of control military machine that will be followed by escalating threats to the world due to the increasing violence - a thoughtful gesture from world leaders supposedly dedicated to protect their citizens.
Designated by critics as the Prussia of the Middle East, an army that has a nation, Israel must recognize that a population already under siege due to sanctions and embargo while living precariously with lack of food, water, electricity and other essentials of life, is at the tipping point of total destruction. The only way for the Gaza Palestinians to leave the fenced and blockaded Gaza and escape the onslaught is by death. Can we assume that many Palestinians, the oxygen sucked from their lungs by the missile blasts, in their last gasp note a relief in their intensive suffering and murmur the words once spoken by Martin Luther King, “Free at last, free at last, thank God, I’m finally free at last?”
How many of the world’s peoples are scheduled to utter similar words in the near future?

Two-state solution key to Israel-Palestine conflict

Internet January17, 2009

Shibley Telhami, a professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, joins our panel to discuss the implications of the Israel-Hamas war, which entered its 18th day on Monday. Mr. Telhami is the co-author, with Steven A. Cook, of “Addressing the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” a recommendation by the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings to the Obama administration.

While the pictures of death and destruction in Gaza, as well as the images of rockets hitting Israeli cities, have made the Palestinian-Israeli issue more urgent for the Obama administration, it was already urgent in a bigger sense. Time is running out on the two-state solution.

Barack Obama must not be indifferent to the immense suffering of civilians in the region. Indeed, this is the window through which people in the Middle East and the world are viewing the conflict — and most are stunned by the seeming indifference of the Bush administration. All eyes are now on the president-elect and he will not have a second chance to make a first impression. But just as important, Mr. Obama must recognize that American involvement in preserving the two-state solution is crucial.

The two-state solution is under assault — elites, especially on the Palestinian side, are losing faith in its viability, and even its desirability — as the Palestinian Territories fragment socially, economically and territorially and as Israeli settlements continue to grow in the West Bank. The United States cannot let it collapse. It is the only realistic alternative since the Israelis will not accept a one-state solution and the Palestinians will not acquiesce in their conditions. The collapse of the two-state option would stress Israeli relations with all its neighbors and test its peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Indeed, it could lead to another Palestinian Intifada, fuel militancy and have serious ramifications for Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel. The impact would be felt beyond the region, as the Palestinian issue remains the prism through which many Arabs and Muslims view the world.

Despite these troubling trends, there are also opportunities. There is overwhelming support among Arab states for the two-state solution. Even among the angry public, two-thirds of Arabs I polled with Zogby International in 2008 supported the principle of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Yes, it’s true that a majority of Arabs (as well as many Israelis and Palestinians) believe the solution will not come about, but that’s an indication that the popularity of militancy in the region is more an outcome of the failure at peace-making than an embrace of militant ideologies. The key is to create hope and incentives for most, if not all, the players by introducing a credible regional framework for peace and security.

Since it is impossible to envision a workable peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians as long as the Palestinians remain divided, President Obama should encourage Arab states to broker Palestinian reconciliation and a cease-fire as a prelude to effective diplomacy aimed at a comprehensive peace between Israel and its neighbors.

Can Hamas reconcile itself to a two-state solution? Will they ultimately value nation over ideology? Will they be lured by the prospect of independence and governance? I don’t know. But I do know that we have not put in place a credible process that shifts public opinion and tests Hamas — and that the alternative to putting such a process in place is almost certain failure — and more bloodshed and suffering.

Israel faces UN court on legality of attack, writes the DAILY STAR quoting Guardian Online
Israel faces the prospect of intervention by international courts amid growing calls that its actions in Gaza are a violation of world humanitarian and criminal law.

The UN general assembly, which is meeting this week to discuss the issue, will consider requesting an advisory opinion from the international court of justice, the Guardian has learned. “There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law,” said Richard Falk, the UN’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.

“There is a consensus among independent legal experts that Israel is an occupying power and is therefore bound by the duties set out in the fourth Geneva convention,” Falk added. “The arguments that Israel’s blockade is a form of prohibited collective punishment, and that it is in breach of its duty to ensure the population has sufficient food and healthcare as the occupying power, are very strong.” A Foreign Office source confirmed the UK would consider backing calls for a reference to the ICJ. “It’s definitely on the table,” the source said. “We have already called for an investigation and are looking at all evidence and allegations.”

An open letter to the prime minister signed by prominent international lawyers and published in yesterday’s Guardian states: “The United Kingdom government … has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.” The letter argues that Israel has violated principles of humanitarian law, including launching attacks directly aimed at civilians and failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants.

Questions are also being raised as to whether the international criminal court, which deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity, would have any jurisdiction to hear cases against perpetrators of the alleged crimes on both sides of the conflict. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian territories are signatories to the Rome statute, which brings states within the jurisdiction of the ICC. More likely, experts say, is the establishment of ad-hoc tribunals of the kind created to deal with the war in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda.

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Israel ‘Breaking Law’ with Gaza War

The president of the United Nations General Assembly has accused Israel of violating international law with its war on Gaza in which almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them civilians.

“Gaza is ablaze. It has been turned into a burning hell,” Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann told an emergency session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday. He said Israel’s offensive was “a war against a helpless, defenceless and imprisoned people” and accused Israel of carrying out attacks on civilian targets.

“The violations of international law inherent in the Gaza assault have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force [and] attacks on civilian targets, including homes, mosques, universities, schools,” he said. He also rebuked UN member-states for their lack of action over the crisis, saying: “The [UN Security Council] may have found itself unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to impose an immediate ceasefire, but outsourcing that effort to one or two governments, or through the quartet, does not relieve the council of its own responsibilities under the UN charter.

“The council cannot disavow its collective responsibility. It cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns.”

Ryad Mansour, the Palestinian observer at the UN, called for an independent investigation of Israel’s “grave breaches and systematic violations of international law”. “Since this crisis began, it is without a doubt that a multitude of war crimes have been perpetrated by the occupying power [Israel],” he said while also calling for “measures for the protection of the defenceless Palestinian civilian population.”

Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, dismissed the session as a “cynical, hateful and politicised [attempt] to de-legitimize Israel’s fundamental right to defend its citizens”.

Gaza war ‘genocide’

The emergency meeting had been requested by the 118-member UN member states making up the non-aligned movement. An Israeli delegate had sought to block the session on procedural grounds by arguing that under the UN charter the 192-member assembly could not rule on a matter already being tackled by the Security Council, but the move was dismissed. D’Escoto noted that the Security Council last week had called for a Gaza ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces. “Prime Minister Olmert’s recent statement disavowing the authority of Resolution 1860 [the Security Council resolution] clearly places Israel as a state in contempt of international law and the United Nations,” d’Escoto added. He urged the assembly to agree its own non-binding assembly resolution reflecting “the urgency of our commitment to end this slaughter” in Gaza.

Israel has continued its offensive regardless of the resolution which was also rejected by Hamas. D’Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Israel’s killings of Palestinians in Gaza amounted to “genocide”. Almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s Gaza offensive, which Israel says is to stop Palestinian rocketfire coming from Gaza.

Linux, not piracy
writes Zeeshan Hasan  in The DAILY STAR of  January 13, 2009

THE recent pledges to build a digital Bangladesh are heartening. A huge quantity of government data exists which could provide much better transparency and efficiency if it were available on-line. This includes basic information to protect the rights of individuals, such as computerised land records, which anyone can verify over the web.

Such a system would make it harder for local hooligans to take over land by forcefully occupying it. The police and other local authorities could simply look up an on-line database to see who the rightful owners are, and protect them from encroachment. Currently, verification of land ownership is impossible, and requires a decade-long legal case, a million of which are already clogging up the courts.

However, a question, which has not been addressed is the operating system and software on which a digital Bangladesh can run. Up till now, almost all the software used in Bangladesh have been pirated copies of Microsoft Windows and Office. It is even common for large database servers to be set up with pirated Microsoft and Oracle software.

This situation is not sustainable. Our software piracy has been overlooked because of the small size of our PC market; but as soon as the government gets serious about providing hundreds of thousands of computers to rural schools and colleges packed with educational software to help overcome the shortage of English and Math teachers (for example), Microsoft and US trade officials will notice.

The time is coming when the price for widespread piracy will have to be paid. With the combined price of MS Windows and MS Office easily totalling $500, and each Oracle server database license costing a thousand dollars, the price payable by the government alone would be many millions of dollars. There is a simple path out of this mess. The government needs to have a software-use policy, which encourages the use of open-source software.

Open-source software such as the Linux operating system and the OpenOffice word processor and spreadsheet programs provide perfect replacements for Microsoft Windows and Office. And they are produced by a worldwide community of software engineers and are available for download free of charge. Likewise, open-source databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL can replace pirated Microsoft and Oracle databases.

Bangladesh is not the only developing nation facing a software piracy problem. Software piracy is common in all developing countries. Vietnam, in a case of real forward-thinking IT policy, recently decided to replace all of its pirated copies of Microsoft Windows, MS Office and Oracle databases with free software equivalents. The Vietnamese government has given all government departments a year or two to implement the software changes as well as to re-train users.

In addition to eliminating piracy, open-source software provides a big dividend to the local software industry. Currently, whenever a government office buys an Oracle database, almost all the money goes to Oracle in the US. If an open source database such as MySQL were used, all the money would go to a local software company.

Open-source also carries a political message. With the current situation in the Middle East, we as a nation should consider whether or not we want to commit to paying American corporations for all of our software, since part of our money will go to US income taxes and ultimately pay for more Israeli bombs.

Bangadesh urgently needs to follow the lead of Vietnam, China, India and other countries which have used open-source software to both eliminate their dependence on pirated American products as well as to give a boost to their local software industry. The question is whether our government officials will be sufficiently forward thinking to take such a step.