The week in re(ar)view

Busted busts
Last week statues en route to a museum in France were stolen from Zia International Airport in Dhaka. Our facts based on serious speculation suggested that the statues were tired of the usual flight delays walked off in anger.

These were two Vishnu statues one of which was a bust. Now it turns out both of them are busted. Yes, pun was seriously intended.

Investigators retrieved some broken pieces of the two stolen statuettes from a dump on the city outskirts. Possibly the thieves figured the statues did not go too well with the modern plasma televison hanging from their secret den. More importantly the items were too hot to handle and they dropped it. Yes, today is official punning day.

“Honestly, dad. I can’t keep coming in here every 5 minutes to help you with your computer. From now on I’ll be charging you $3.00 per minute.”

Better IT graduates
The 10th International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT) on 29 December urged educational institutions to improve the quality of IT graduates in the country to compete in global market.

It's a good urging but before we can have quality IT graduates we need quality IT institutions. Consider the number of one-room institutions that provide IT training in one month with prime focus on how to click on different web sites and set up wallpaper.

Cheaper internet
Of course, one way to improve the IT sector would be reduce internet tariff so more people could access the web. A lot of gung-ho people actually give up on going to institutions and start reading up on the web itself.

Currently the government is likely to cut internet tariff by 50 percent soon in a bid to boost the country's ICT (information and communication technology) industry.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), which is responsible for fixing the tariff, last week sent in a proposal to finance ministry to reduce the prices.
But 50 percent is not enough considering a subscriber has to pay

BTTB Tk 35,000 a month for a 256 kbps (kilobits per second) dedicated internet connection whereas an Indian subscriber pays an amount that is hardly 1,800 taka.

By Gokhra and Mood Dude

Touristy laff lines

A fishy tale
Two not-quite-bright guys go on a fishing trip. They rent all the equipment: the reels, the rods, the wading suits, the rowboat, the car, and even a cabin in the woods. They spend a fortune.

The first day they go fishing, but they don't catch anything. The same thing happens on the second day, and on the third day.

It goes on like this until finally, on the last day of their vacation, one of the men catches a fish.

As they're driving home they're really depressed. One guy turns to the other and says, "Do you realize that this one lousy fish we caught cost us fifteen hundred dollars?”

The other guy says, "Wow! It's a good thing we didn't catch any more."

All quacked up
An tourist was visiting a small village when there was a sudden gust of wind which blew his hat off into the middle of a nearby pond. Walking over to the village idiot, who was sitting beside the pond, the tourist asked "Say, son, how deep is this pond?" "Oh, only a few inches," replied the idiot. After taking his shoes off and rolling his trousers up over his knees, the tourist stepped into the pond to retrieve his hat and, within a few seconds, was completely submerged in the water. Swimming out to the middle of the pond he finally reached his hat, and then struggled back to edge. Climbing out, he turned to the village idiot and screamed, "Hey you, I thought you said that pond was only a few inches deep!" "Well," shrugged the idiot, "the water only comes half way up that duck over there."

Slow flight
Three tourists climbed up the tower with London's Big Ben and decided to throw their watches off the top, run down the stairs and try to catch them before they hit the ground.

The first tourist threw his watch but heard it crash before he had taken three steps. The second threw his watch and made only two steps before hearing his watch shatter. The third tourist threw his watch off the tower, went down the stairs, bought a snack at a shop up the street and walked slowly back to Big Ben in time to catch the watch.

"How did you do that?" asked one of his friends.
“My watch is 20 minutes slow.”

Once, a woman called her servant and told him, "Go and call your master. I have made some cakes for him. Tell his to come and eat those."

The servant hurried to his master's office and stood at the door, where his master was having a meeting. Infront of all the officers he shouted,

"Master, come home quickly! Mistress has made some cakes and is calling you home for tea!"

When the master and his servant reached home, the master told the servant to whisper or gesture whenever he was in the office. Some weeks later, the servant again went to his master's office. This time the servant the servant whispered and was gesturing towards the door. The master came to the servant and asked,

"What happened?"
The servant replied,
"Master, your house has caught fire!!!"

One day, a teacher asked all the students of Kindergarten,
"Which students in this class are very poor in math please stand up in your place.

No one stood up.
After some time a small boy sitting at the last row stood up. The teacher told him,

"Very good, my boy, very good! This is the way you should own up things."
The small boy immediately said,
"No miss, I'm not weak in math. You only stood up in the class, so I accompanied you!"

Andy: Hey Sandy, did you know that my father shaves 40-50 times a day?
Sandy: Impossible! How can someone shave so much?
Andy: Ofcourse he can shave 40-50 times a day. He's a barber!

Compiled By Christi Aung Leuna

1.A crocodile can't stick its tongue out.
2.A shrimp's heart is in its head.
3.It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
4.A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

5.Horses can't vomit.
6.If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.
7.A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!
8.Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
9.23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.

10.Most lipstick contains fish scales.
11.You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
12.Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
13.The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.

14.Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
15.Pearls melt in vinegar.
16.Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

17.The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu, a New Zealand hill.
18.Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!
19.The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

20.Turtles can breathe through their butts.
21.Butterflies taste with their feet.
22.In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
23.Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

Complied by: Nayeema Reza

Three children organisations in the country are making a child led alternative report for the first time to submit it to Child Rights Committee (CR Committee) in United Nations.

Children of Ichchey, Child Brigade and Vorer Alo, children organisations affiliated to Save the Children Sweden Denmark along with National Children Task Force (NCTF) of Save the Children Australia are preparing an alternative report which will be send to CR Committee in United Nations.

As Bangladesh has signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the rights of Child (UNCRC) in 1990, the government sends a report to CR Committee in United Nations after every five years to portray the child rights situation in the country.

Along with this main report submitted by the government, the United Nations also receives alternative reports from different people or organisations and children are also allowed to send their own alternative report on the issue of child rights. This leads the UN to realise the child rights situation in the country better and creates a scope for discussion.

Usually, an alternative report discusses definition of child, principles, civil rights, family environment and alternative care, primary health and welfare, education, leisure and recreational activities and special protection system.

The children have requested all other children in the country to let them know any of information or experience on education, health and protection. Any child under the age of 18 years can write to them on the following issues:

1. The present situation in the sector of education, health and protection,
2. From whom you get support or response or help in these three sectors (it could be your own experience or your friends experience) and
3. Your dream in these three sectors or what you want to see in these three sectors. The write up can be posted to the following postal address or the e-mail id.

AMAR KOTHA AMI BOLI
Ichchey, Child Brigade, Vorer Alo and National Children Task Force (NCTF)
Care Of: Save the Children Sweden Denmark
House# 9, Road# 16, Gulshan-1, Dhaka-1212.
e-mail: crinfo@scsd-bd.org