Climate change impacts in Bangladesh
With the Himalayas to the north and the Bay of Bengal to the south, Bangladesh sits on one of the world’s largest and most densely populated deltas, where the Jamuna, Padma and Meghna rivers converge.
Bangladesh
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Continue feeding extreme poor
Regulatory Reforms Commission (RRC) Chairman Dr Akbar Ali Khan yesterday urged the government to continue feeding the extreme poor despite good prospect of boro harvest. "The country needs adequate quantity of food stock. In addition, there should be food arrangement for the extreme poor, as they won't be able to buy food at whatever may be the level of price,' he told reporters at the RRC office. Dr Akbar Ali said, "The government also needs to create employment opportunities for them (extreme poor).'
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Climate change pact on troubled path
Agreement on a new climate change treaty could run the risk of failure at talks in Copenhagen next year if governments do not narrow their differences, a top UN environmental official said yesterday. The result of this month's talks in Bangkok to discuss commitments to a road map for battling global warming did not bode well in the run-up to the 2009 meeting, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
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TB infection rate 20 times higher among prisoners: Study
The rate of being affected by Tuberculosis (TB) among the prisoners is 20 times higher than the rate among general population, a study said yesterday. International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) conducted the study in Dhaka Central Jail. The study led by Dr Sayera Banu, associate scientist of ICDDR,B screened some 12,464 prisoners in Dhaka Jail. It further found that 22 percent of prisoners who were found negative in TB screening in the jail laboratory were later found positive when ICDDR,B screened their sputum through 'culture' technology.
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Gas emission near B'baria field threatens people, ecology
Emission of natural gas through thousands of holes at Shyampur and Anandapur villages, Loiska Beel and Titas riverbed from Bakail and Shuhilpur areas near Brahmanbaria Titas Gas Field is posing threat to people and environment. A number of small holes that emerged three years ago have now expanded into big ones and the problem is gradually affecting new areas. As a remedy for the situation, authorities in early February this year completed killing of dilapidated well No 3 of Brahmanbaria Titas Gas Field but emission of gas through holes in the nearby areas has continued.
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Food prices and the nature of government
AMID the intense suffering and pain generated by food inflation, our understanding of its causes is getting murkier. This issue is, predictably but unfortunately, getting increasingly politicised. Any sound and sustainable solution requires a sound understanding of the issue. Food inflation is now a macro and global phenomenon. Global price developments are pushing food prices higher all over the world. But vocal and populist, and often fact-free, debates at home are suggesting otherwise.
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Boro on 1000 acres dying as irrigation canal leased out
Prospect of Irri-Boro on over 1,000 acres of land in Kamalapur union under Patuakhali Sadar upazila has become bleak as the lands cannot be irrigated as the canal running through the fields has been leased to some influential people. The lessees have built seven dams in the canal, obstructing its flow, sources said. "We went to the local union parishad chairman several times to resolve the problem but to no effect,' farmer Shahjahan Sikder told this correspondent.
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Govt to increase food storage capacity
The government is going to construct new warehouses and repair old ones soon to enhance the storage capacity of food, Food and Disaster Management Adviser A M M Shawkat Ali said yesterday. The initiative has been taken up since the existing storage capacity will not be enough to store the targeted amount of food grains.
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Reasons for soaring prices
AND all nations came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain because everywhere the famine was severe:" Genesis 41:57 The Old Testament. The World Bank chief, Robert Zoellick, recently said that the demand for ethanol, droughts in Australia and Europe, financial market speculation, and increased demand for food due to rising incomes in China and India, has significantly contributed to "soaring" food prices around the world.
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G8 summit to discuss food price rises
Record global food prices will be on the agenda of the Group of Eight heads of state summit in July for the first time in almost 30 years, amid mounting concerns about the social, political and economic impact of the food crisis. The International Monetary Fund on Monday gave its starkest warning about the impact of rising commodities, saying food and oil prices "risk becoming a destabilising force in the global economy'. Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, said in a letter to his G8 colleagues that soaring food prices were posing "imminent and serious' global challenges.
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Biofuels making food more expensive: ADB
Developed nations should stop paying agricultural subsidies to encourage biofuel production because the payments are making staple foods more expensive, the Asian Development Bank said Monday. Biofuels should also be re-examined by governments around the world as it is increasingly unclear how environmentally friendly they are, ADB managing director general Rajat Nag said in an interview with The Associated Press. The production of biofuel leads to forests being destroyed and reduced land area for growing crops for food, he said.