E-Bangladesh

Football’s governing body FIFA has disapproved Ranger’s striker Daniel Cousin’s proposed £3.0m to Fulham. Rangers Chief Executive Martin Bain feels disappointed at the move as he said “It’s been a frustrating time for all parties.”

The 31 year old striker from Gabon has featured in RC Lens and Rangers this season already and FIFA says that a player cannot be in more than two teams in one season. Cousin signed from Lens on a £1.1m transfer fee to Rangers this summer.

The transfer fee for Cousin between Rangers and Fulham was agreed this January and he needed FIFA’s approval for the switch. His move has been block at the moment. But it may go through this summer when the next season begins.

Bain said that FIFA’s lengthy decision was a disappointment for everyone involved in the transfer. “We are disappointed that it has taken FIFA so long to make a decision,” he said. “”We received a good offer from Fulham for the player and entered into the proposed transfer fully aware he had already made two appearances for Lens before joining Rangers. He made one start in the Intertoto Cup in July and another as a late substitute appearance against Bordeaux in the French league.”

Bain revealed that both clubs felt they had strong reasons to believe that the transfer would go through and they were disappointed in the end at FIFA’s ruling. “Daniel remains a Rangers player, fully committed to helping the club push for domestic and European success this season,” he added.

Cousin says that he is determined to help Rangers secure honours this season. “Obviously when I heard I had the opportunity to move to the Premiership and the offer was right both for myself and Rangers, it was difficult to turn down,” he said. “However, I made it clear all along that I have enjoyed my time at Rangers and I am more than happy to stay, fight for my place and help the manager and the rest of the squad compete for silverware this season.”

[By Shahnawaz Alam]

Photo: Getty Images

The 23 year old Argentine midfielder Javier Mascherano has signed a new 4-year contract with Liverpool. Mascherano’s contract contract was owned by the Media Sports Investments consortium, then moving to Anfield on loan from West Ham over a year ago.

He was allowed to sign for Liverpool outside the transfer window because he did not belong to any club. He said “I am very, very happy and now I can concentrate just on playing football,” Mascherano told Liverpoolfc.tv. “I said all along that I wanted to stay at Liverpool and now that I have signed I can say this is the best and the biggest moment in my career so far. From the first day I arrived at Liverpool the feeling was good and I knew this was where I wanted to play my football.

“It’s good news for me and my family that everything is sorted and I know where my future is going to be. I just want to do my best for the fans and the people of the club. I am at a top side and I know I can win titles here. That’s the big thing for me. I want to be at a club where we can win trophies and have success.”

[By Shahnawaz Alam]

Photo: Getty Images

Arsenal Manager Arsene Wenger says Martin taylor, who is responsible for breaking Eduardo’s leg, apologized to him.

After commenting on Taylor tackle, where he said that Taylor should never play again, he said “He came to see me after the game and said it was completely accidental. I thought about it and said if it was accidental I had to retract my comment. We do not want to be a club who is seen to be wanting revenge or anything. We try to play football in a fair way.”

After the match Taylor received a lot of death threats and hate mails, but Arsenal boss Wenger refuses to admit that his initial response instigated the response from the fans.

Wenger said “I am responsible for what I say but I came out and retracted what I said. I didn’t want to go overboard. I take that responsibility. But people who make death threats have to feel responsible for what they do. It is idiotic and not accepted but I do not want to be responsible for that.”

[By Shahnawaz Alam]

Photo: Getty Images

[Zulfikar Ali, USA]

I just came across a news article in DNINDIA which forced me to write something. Here is the excerpt  that I want to quote.

“The general is here to get the Indian political establishment to advise Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party not to take part in the national elections scheduled for later this year.”

It is a good thing when two neighboring countries military chiefs visits and discusses national security but it gets controversial when an army Chief visits a certain nation to lobby against two ex-prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheik Hasina and Khaleda Zia. As an unelected government official, it is unconstitutional for an Army chief to visit foreign nations and discuss internal politics. He doesn’t have people’s mandate to host such a dialog.

This is a just recent example of how Bangladesh government is running under the shadow of military dictator. We must have election in Bangladesh as soon as possible and give people back their basic human rights. And General Moeen must stop interfering in the national politics while serving as a Chief of Army Staff. Otherwise Bangladesh Army will get controversial because of one man’s wish to be a King illegally.

Update 2/27/2008

This article by Bhaskar Roy interestingly encourages General Moeen U’s activities and actually calls him the “leader of his country“. Article ends with,

“There is a lot to be done in the Indo-Bangladesh relations. It is for Dhaka to grab the opportunity. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed should return from India as an encouraged leader of his country.”

I don’t recall General Moeen U Ahmed being elected in any election to be called “leader of his country”. He is a military personal and a government servant. I am ok calling him “Leader of Bangladesh Army” for his current position, but not “Leader of the country”. India, as being the largest democracy in the world, should not encourage military dictatorship in the region for its own shake. What’s your thought on this?

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Zulfikar Ali  [http://www.bangladeshpolitics.org]  is one of the young analysts of the politics of Bangladesh living in USA. He uses to write as a Guest Blogger for E-Bangladesh. 

[Dhaka Correspondent]

The Election Commission will announce the schedule for four city corporation elections next month aiming to hold the polls at the end of April.

‘We will announce the schedule next month for elections to four city corporations and hope that the government will create an environment  enabling the people to go for electioneering,’ chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda said during the second round of dialogue with the Jatiya Party on Monday.  

Most of the political parties, which participated in the ongoing EC-sponsored second round of talks on electoral reforms, however, opposed holding of local government elections before the parliamentary polls. 

‘We will hold elections to the city corporations as a trial run of our newly prepared voters’ roll with photographs though most of the political parties do not support this ahead of the parliamentary elections’, Huda said.  

The four city corporations are Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet. The draft voters’ lists of these four areas were published on February 18 and now are kept on display for corrections. 

All three election commissioners led by CEC on February 5 called on the chief adviser to the caretaker government and urged to create environment for polls in four city corporations and seven municipalities where elections will be held in April. 

‘The government will decide how it will create a congenial atmosphere for polls, either by lifting emergency or relaxing it,’ Huda said hoping that a decision in this regards will be taken early next month.

The ministry of local government and election commission, meanwhile, is preparing a set of new electoral code of conduct including new eligibility criteria for candidates for local government polls. 

Local government adviser Anwarul Iqbal is scheduled to hold a meeting with chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda to set the qualifications and disqualifications of the candidates for the local government elections in line with the recommendations of local government strengthening committee headed by AMM Shawkat Ali, now an adviser to the government. 

No political leaders holding any party post or holding any office of profit could contest in the polls, according to the draft of the new electoral rules for local government. 

The CEC on Wednesday said that the EC is planning to hold televised debates between the candidates to the four city corporation polls, which may be broadcast on BTV and local private channels.

‘If the city corporation election broadcasts are successful we will hold similar debates for the national polls,’ said the CEC said. 

The EC’s roadmap towards holding the stalled ninth parliamentary polls by December this year, stipulated that all the overdue elections to city corporations, municipal corporations, and union and upazila councils should be held before the general elections. The commission later modified the plan, seeking to complete the overdue city corporation and some municipality elections before the parliamentary polls.