Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s first cabinet reshuffle since her third tenure in Oct 2001 appears to have pleased none of the coalition parties she heads nor the opposition, media, the “donor” community and people at large.

After her BNP-led four-party alliance secured a landslide in the last general election, Mrs Khaleda Zia was sworn-in as prime minister on Oct 10, 2001, with a 60-member jumbo cabinet, disappointing friends and irritating foes. The critics had argued that such a wide-bodied cabinet would not only become a white elephant at the cost of the public exchequer, but also stand in the way of efficient governance.

But the ruling party argued that the premier had some political compulsions to informing a large cabinet as she was obliged to accommodate representatives from alliance partners and young-BNP leaders who had made a substantial contribution to her electoral victory. There were also hints from the BNP top- notchers that the PM would downsize the cabinet as soon as opportunity came.

Then came the rumour that in about six months subsequent to formation of the cabinet, that ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers had lost PM’s favour. Media speculation over cabinet reshuffle followed. It gained momentum when Mrs Zia have warned some cabinet colleagues that ministerial positions were not permanent. The speculation climaxed after the PM secured resignation letters from six ministers, eight state ministers and two deputy ministers more than two months ago.

Meanwhile, civil society criticism against the PM’s “indifference” towards the ‘jumbo cabinet’ heightened and so did the pressure of international money-lending agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF. The multinational lending agencies clearly “advised” the government, during the annual consultation meeting in Dhaka on May 17-18 to reduce the size of the cabinet.

Finally, the shake-up came on the May 22, exactly 19 months and 12 days after the formation of the cabinet. Three ministers and four state ministers lost their jobs, reducing the cabinet size to 53. Apart from that, portfolios of 11 sitting ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers were redistributed.

But the step, as expected, was considered insignificant by almost all the quarters concerned, primarily because the size of the cabinet still remained huge. To boot some surviving ministers had allegations of corruption against them.

The Awami League, the main opposition in parliament, which was very critical of the size of the cabinet, was quick to react. “This is nothing but eyewash. They have just dumped those who had virtually no work”, the party’s general secretary told the press immediately after the reshuffle.

Rashed Khan Menon, leader of the opposition Left Democratic Front, found it ‘totally insignificant’. “It has been done to satisfy the so-called donors”, Mr Menon told the local media.

Two components of the ruling four-party alliance, Bangladesh Jatiya Party and Islami Oikya Jote, left out of the cabinet and promised induction later, were also unhappy. They voiced their grievances to the PM but did not issue any press statement.

Another component of the ruling alliance, Jamaat-e-Islami, which has two members in the cabinet from the beginning, reacted sharply to the shake-up, as Matiur Rahman Nizami, the Amir of the Jamaat was transferred from the ministry of agriculture to the ministry of industries. The new portfolio is considered less important. The Jamaat was not even informed about the change beforehand, let alone consulted.

The Jamaat chief told the press that he had found the change of ministry a demotion, while a top-level delegation officially communicated the feeling to the PM within two days of the cabinet reshuffle.

The mainstream print media has criticised the government for its failure to substantially reduce the size of the cabinet. Some newspapers criticised in their editorials the so-called downsizing by calling it a ‘molehill out of a mountain’, while others suggested that ‘at least one third of the 60-member cabinet should have been dropped’. Many newspapers also carried articles, news analysis, and interview-based stories critical of the prime minister’s failure to reduce the cabinet.

What is ironical about the whole situation is that some of those dropped believe that there are cabinet members who are more incompetent compared to them. One of the discarded ministers even went public, saying “My performance was not worse than of many of the cabinet members who have succeeded to retain the job. There was, at least, no allegation of corruption against me. I lost the job, because I cannot flatter the high-ups.

LONDON: Sometimes an atlas makes the point more eloquently than words — so if you have one at hand, take a look at Poland. This country of 40 million people sits in the middle of the vast North European plain. It shares a border with Germany to the west, Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine to the east. With Poland set to join the European Union next year, this becomes Europe’s new frontier.

Except Belarus and the Ukraine — even Russia beyond them — don’t accept that they, that is to say the Belarusians, the Ukrainians and even the Russians, are not European as well. They want the same civilization as those to their west want, and to be part of it. They remind you that it was de Gaulle who famously talked of Europe extending from the Atlantic to the Urals, and the Ukrainians will tell you their capital city — Kiev — is only half way. A glance at the map shows they’re right. If de Gaulle’s definition of the provenance of Europe has any validity at all, then the world of Warsaw, Minsk, Prague and Kiev defines Central Eastern Europe — London, Paris and Brussels Central Western Europe. The outer cities are Dublin and Lisbon in the west, Gorky and Kazan in the east.

The British don’t think like this. For most of them Berlin is as far east as their mental map of Europe gets. Poland’s claims for inclusion demand a real stretch even if western Europeans can see their case intellectually — but beyond that they draw the line. They have no conception of the great distances that lie beyond the Polish frontier no sense of obligation no belief that those peoples could be part of the same Europe.

In Warsaw it is different. Like every city in Europe its stones and streets betoken its very particular history with its particular traumas in Warsaw’s case the trauma is even more obvious because most of the city has been completely rebuilt since 1945. After the war very little was left standing — the final act of destruction after 200 years of being partitioned, repartitioned and fought over by Russia and Germany. As Poland takes it place in Nato and the EU, it has come of age — graced last week by visits from Messrs Bush and Blair, grateful for its support over Iraq.

But while it may now be a fully-fledged capitalist democracy with its own role to play in the concert of nations, it cannot escape the legacy of geography and history. Its stance over Iraq — siding with the classically Western Atlantic powers — was a vitally important assertion that it belongs in the West, notwithstanding where it sits on the map.

Yet geography’s realities remain brutal. Poland can have its sector in Iraq with the British and the Americans. It can be a member of the EU, at least if more than half the population vote in its referendum in ten days’ time. But it remains on Europe’s frontier. Its mental furniture necessarily encompasses the countries between it and the Urals as having claims to be European, with all the vexing questions such a recognition poses.

How vexing became obvious to me recently, when the European Commission’s Reflection Group on the Spiritual and Cultural Dimension of Europe — of which I am a member — met in open session in Warsaw. You can talk your head off about what Europe may or may not have in common in Brussels, Paris or Berlin, and make claim and counterclaim about the rights and wrongs of the proposed EU constitution, but in Warsaw the issues are very raw. Historically, Poland has always been the transmission mechanism for Western values into the East beyond: for intellectuals, scientists, politicians and journalists from this ‘second-hand Europe’, as they dismiss themselves, Warsaw is something of a Mecca, with a reputation rather like Paris has in the West.

Thursday was the opportunity for them to be heard. Poland and the Polish intellectual elite had made sure that the first meeting the Reflection Group held outside Brussels was in Warsaw. If we were questing after some common set of values and beliefs that defines Europeanness, then it had to be watertight enough to justify excluding this other Europe if it is continually to be denied the chance of joining.

So why is it, then, that Poland can join the EU, Turkey can be considered but the Ukraine cannot? And if Ukraine does pass the threshold, why is it inconceivable that Russia could ever join? The Turkish ambassador to Poland eloquently argued the case that Turkey was secular and so committed to the rule of law, democracy and human rights that it wanted to cement the commitment by joining the EU.

Lviv University’s Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak passionately followed up, saying that what was true for Turkey was even more so for the Ukraine. It was now secular, but like the rest of Europe had Christian roots, even if via Constantinople rather than Rome. It might be a mess of political corruption, but it had not fallen into ethnic cleansing. And recent massive protests against the President showed that Ukrainian civil society wanted the same rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights as the rest of Europe.

And if one test of Europeanness is a mutual desire to build and uphold a social contract — a line I have been advocating — then the Ukraine, Belarus and even Russia pass the test with flying colours. Hrytsak understood the practical obstacles to admission and that it might take decades but he pleaded for the door to remain open. To shut it would be a triple betrayal: a betrayal of fellow Europeans still struggling for democracy and prosperity against local authoritarian regimes a betrayal of the investment the West has made in trying to transform East Europe and, if Europe’s ideals cannot be transferred, a betrayal of the European idea itself. To say no, never, to the idea that the EU might one day extend to the Urals is in effect to condemn this part of Europe to purgatory.

Hrytsak is right. But to meet any ambitions for the future the EU has to hold together today. It needs an operational constitution for 25 member states informed by a real belief that Europe is more than just a forum of nation-states. It needs its single currency to work. For the time being the EU will do well to survive, let alone take on new members the best it can offer is its ‘Ring of Friends’ initiative, offering special deals and concessions to those on its frontiers but not more.

Warsaw and so many of the other cities of eastern Europe are just two and half hours away by plane from London. It is a revelatory flight — and it is one that should be mandatory for every enemy of the EU. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.

The disciplinary record of our cricketers or for that matter of the officials was never exemplary, but under the present circumstances it has become worse and the blame rests entirely with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

When the present PCB management headed by a serving general took over the reins of cricket more than three and a half years ago, Pakistan was one of the top three teams in the world. It was a beaten World Cup finalist in 1999 and enjoyed high ranking in the Test arena.

Today, Pakistan is rated just above Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in cricketing ability and arguably as the worst disciplined side amongst the Ten Test- playing nations. Our players are being branded as “cheats”, with two prime strike bowlers caught red-handed with their “hands in the till”.

No other country has this dubious distinction. A voluminous book could be written on acts of misdemeanour perpetrated by our cricketers. Waqar Younis was banned for ball tampering the first international cricketer of world standing to be penalized and very recently PCB’s favourite Shoaib Akhtar was nabbed in the act of defacing the “white ball”. His illegal act was watched by millions of viewers on television to the sheer delight of the detractors of Pakistani cricket. Cameras in today’s hi-tech era do not lie.

Ironically, Shoaib was earlier reprimanded for a similar offence and was let off without any punitive action or fine against Zimbabwe. If he and Waqar were punished then and there, this sordid cheating saga might never have re-surfaced. But then discipline starts from the top and unfortunately PCB higher-ups do not believe in maintaining discipline.

PCB instead of taking serious action against the “Rawalpindi Express”, which more often gets derailed than run on schedule, the PCB as usual took the incident in its stride as nothing wrong was done.

To make matters worse, one of the high-flying PCB officials wearing four hats, had the nerve to blame the Match Referee for Shoaib’s two-match ban, claiming the pacer was innocent as his ball tampering was not an illegal act and he was the victim of a conspiracy. What a righteous message for our international stars and the youngsters aiming to follow in their footsteps.

Earlier, Pakistan’s good name was soiled in the World Cup in South Africa when pictures of several Pakistani players jostling each other were splashed the world over. Again the PCB kept mum and swept the issue under the carpet. Instead of taking prompt action, the PCB decided to hush up the issue and the offenders who tarnished the country’s already sullied disciplinary record went Scot free.

Another aspect that has played a key role in the decline of Pakistan’s cricket fortunes has been PCB’s policy of rewarding undisciplined players and officials.

It is an irony that anyone and everyone who has been critical of the PCB has been hired or has benefited.

So it is not surprising to find out that Rashid Latif, Aamir Sohail and Javed Miandad all with previous disciplinary problems are now employed as captain, chief selector and coach.

Rashid is alleged to be the original whistle blower against his own team-mates, accusing them of being involved in the match-fixing episode, a charge yet to be proved. Today he is captain of the team although he had announced his retirement from both forms of the game. But being a true patriotic Pakistani he decided to continue playing in the best interest of the nation, a slogan very popular in this country.

Sohail is another one rewarded by the PCB. His record as an undisciplined player is known to all and sundry. He even refused to lead the national side on the eve of a Test match. Only the other day, the PCB chief himself declared that all was not well between captain, coach and chief selector and warned that he would take stern action if anyone tried to harm the game and image of the country.

Miandad’s greatness as a player is indisputable. Alas, his relationship with his fellow cricketers and the establishment has been questioned on numerous occasions, which had resulted in the great man being ousted twice as captain and coach after the players openly rebelled against him.

When the present boss took control, everyone expected that with his reputation and background, and having been given a free hand, at least disciplinary matters would improve considerably.

Unless the PCB gives discipline top priority, one fears more humiliation on and off the field and further tarnishing of Pakistan’s image amongst the cricketing world.