Bombing Spree Kills At Least 39 In Baghdad

Monday, October 27, 2003

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began today in Baghdad with car bombers striking the headquarters of the International Red Cross and four police stations across the city, killing at least 39 people. Witnesses said a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed ambulance up to the security gates of the ICRC headquarters at about 8:30 a.m. and detonated the explosives, killing 12 people, including two Iraqis, and injuring up to a dozen others.

In the hours that followed, four other vehicles exploded at police stations around Baghdad in separate attacks. Iraqi police reported that 27 people were killed in those attacks, including 15 Iraqis at al-Doura police station in southern Baghdad.

Among those killed in the bombings of the police stations was one U.S. soldier. Teams of U.S. soldiers have been stationed at police stations around Baghdad since the U.S.-led occupation began.

An attempted suicide attack on a fifth police station was stopped before the suicide bomber could detonate the Land Cruiser he was driving.

The blast at the ICRC blew down a 40-foot section of the front wall of the headquarters, demolished a dozen cars in the area and broke a water main, flooding the streets. Only about a quarter of the 100 Red Cross staffers were present at the time of the bombing (Charles Hanley, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Oct. 27).

In the wake of the bombing, the ICRC said it would consider cutting back its operations in Iraq, which focus on visiting prisoners held by coalition forces and Iraqi police. "Such an attack is a major blow for us," said ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal. "It's a big shock. It is obviously impossible to move onto a normal day's business, so we really have to step back and take stock."

Westphal said the agency had received "unspecified warnings that we may at one stage or another be the targets of an attack" (Alexander Higgins, AP/Yahoo! News, Oct. 27).

Today's bombings came just hours after three U.S. soldiers were killed in overnight clashes and a day after a hotel housing U.S. occupation officials was attacked in a rocket barrage that killed a U.S. colonel and wounded 18 other people but left unhurt U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who was staying at the hotel at the end of his three-day Iraq visit.

In response to the latest spate of violence, Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shiite Muslim member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Security Council, said the United States must speed up the training of Iraqi police and take stricter measures against the insurgency.

"There is no doubt about it that we need to change the rules of engagement with these people," al-Rabii was quoted as saying. "The rules of engagement are now too lenient" (Hanley, AP/Yahoo! News).

Also today, the U.S. military reported it killed a key local Baath Party official who had been plotting against coalition forces and Iraqi authorities. A U.S. military official said Abu Fares was killed before dawn yesterday when he and other insurgents opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi forces during a raid (AP/Yahoo! News, Oct. 27).

Distance Education Offers Affordable Way to Boost Post-Secondary Enrollment in Sri Lanka
By Graham Dwyer

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (27 October 2003) - Every year, one quarter of Sri Lanka's secondary school graduates qualify for university, but only 3% of these gain admission. For the economy to become globally competitive, the number has to double over the next 10 years.

Traditionally, education supply has been narrowly focused on a few professions, concentrating on the public sector. There has also been a close (almost one-to-one) correlation between the number of places available in public universities and the number of public sector job openings. But human resource planning has never addressed self- or private employment and the result has been a skills mismatch and labor shortage.

To meet rising demand, the Government aims to expand enrollment in postsecondary education. But it must find ways to do so without swelling the budget or charging fees. With limited budget growth over the last 10 years, postsecondary education enrollment has stagnated and quality has not kept pace with innovations and new technologies elsewhere.

"Introducing new technologies such as distance learning could increase enrollment and reduce dropouts, with only initial capital costs to put the infrastructure in place," says William Loxley, an ADB Principal Education Specialist.

This is one of the aims of ADB's recently approved Distance Education Modernization Project, which will provide a full range of quality courses for secondary school graduates who lack access to conventional universities by setting up a national network of telecenters and affiliated facilities.

The project is expected to establish more than 100 multimedia centers nationwide, and link the 20,000 students of the 26 existing Open University centers and other public and private institutions via web-based multimedia courses and training.

At present, Sri Lanka has no national delivery system for distance learning, and the core skills needed to develop materials and to train teachers are still in infancy. For instance, the Open University system has the basic regional infrastructure for distance education, but lacks the know-how and materials to introduce distance learning.

The best option seems to be to link hardware and specialized software and services to the establishment of a technically competent business enterprise.

To be called the Distance Education Partnership Program (DEPP), this will offer curriculum and training expertise to create and upgrade existing course materials to the web and to deliver support to the extensive variety of facilities nationwide.

"The DEPP model would enlist the private sector to manage and operate a distance education network within a well-defined framework," Mr. Loxley adds.

"When the system is fully developed and up-and-running, after about five years, it may be possible to either fully privatize the DEPP, or integrate it within the Open University system."

Another approach to double access to education is to encourage public and private schools to share common resources and activities, which forms another key component of ADB's project.

To encourage postsecondary private institutions to put academic programs online, the Government provides matching grants to cover the high costs of borrowing for information and communications technology and multimedia equipment and services.

The matching grant also supports stipends for needy students to attend private schools.

"Experience shows that with distance learning, education systems can be expanded to meet increased demand for improved quality even when the budget is constrained," Mr. Loxley notes.

"Although public funds are needed to pay the base costs for quality teaching, public-private partnerships can help institutions employ new learning technologies." And going beyond education, the project supports the key thrusts of government policy to make Sri Lanka more computer literate.-keralamonitor.com

ADB Appoints Special Project Facilitator to Boost Accountability

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (27 October 2003) - ADB has appointed a Special Project Facilitator as part of its new accountability mechanism to address concerns of persons affected by ADB-assisted projects.

The new mechanism consists of a consultation phase and a compliance review phase. The first is to assist project-affected people through informal, consensus-based methods such as consultative dialogue or mediation. The second is to provide a forum in which project-affected people can air complaints against ADB. The Special Project Facilitator will be responsible for the consultation phase.

Mr. Nalin P. Samarasingha, a former ADB staffer, is expected to take up the position in late November 2003. In an ADB career spanning 23 years, Mr. Samarasingha was a Senior Project Engineer; Manager, Transport and Communications Division (West); Chief, Central Operations Services Office; and Director, Japanese Representative Office, before he retired in October 2000.

His work covered most facets of ADB's operational activities from country programming for physical and social infrastructure sectors to loan and technical assistance processing and administration. His work experience included subregional cooperation, particularly in the Greater Mekong Subregion. In addition, Mr. Samarasingha was on several task forces and working groups on policies, business practices and administration related activities.

His operational experience included projects with significant environmental, land acquisition and resettlement components and he also had extensive experience in working with executing agencies, ministries of finance, civil society groups, nongovernment organizations, multilateral development banks, business groups, universities, print and television media.

Before joining ADB in 1978, Mr. Samarasingha held senior positions in the public and private sectors in Sri Lanka and Canada. His career in Sri Lanka included working in the Public Works Department and concurrently serving on the Board of Directors of a state-owned corporation. Among other activities, he assisted in a parliamentary commission of inquiry into a major state board. In Canada, he has worked with consulting engineers and with the city government of Calgary.

Mr. Samarasingha is a professional engineer with a Master's degree in engineering from the University of Manitoba, Canada, and a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a Bachelor's degree in law from the University of Ceylon. He won a Commonwealth scholarship for postgraduate studies in Canada and a Nuffield fellowship for studies in developing country related issues in the United Kingdom.-keralamonitor.com