Task force to protect environment
The deputy commissioner (DC) of Dhaka district has decided to form a task force of concerned government authorities to protect against environmental pollution, especially water pollution, air pollution
New Age (Bangladesh)
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Hunger kills 28 Ugandans, forces some to eat rats
Global price rises and floods last year have caused severe food shortages in northeast Uganda, where nearly 30 people have died and some have been reduced to eating rats, officials said on Tuesday. The deaths occurred in the remote Karamoja region, an impoverished semi-arid area bordering Kenya and Sudan that is notorious for fighting over livestock and scant resources.
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Call to attach top priority to agri, food security in budget
The government should attach top priority to the country's agriculture and food security and public service sectors in the forthcoming national budget of fiscal 2008-09, speakers said in a discussion in Rajshahi on Tuesday. They also said, the budget should be pro-people and welfare-oriented so that it could bring economic emancipation of the poverty-stricken people. And enhanced subsidy to the agriculture sector could be the means of increasing its yield, they pointed out.
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42 die in one month as diarrhoea spreads
Forty-two people died of diarrhoea in the last one month as the deadly water-borne disease spread alarmingly throughout the country due to hot and humid weather coupled with scarcity of pure drinking water. According to the control room of the directorate general of health services, 87,173 diarrhoea-affected people had been treated in hospitals last month and 42 of them died. At least 110 died of diarr- hoeal diseases and 3,43,922 were affected since January 1 this year.
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70pc still without food aid in Myanmar: UN
About 70 per cent of Myanmar's hungry cyclone survivors remain without UN food aid more than two weeks after the disaster, forcing them to leave their villages, relief workers said on Monday. With the junta so far resisting calls to allow enough foreign disaster experts in to help direct the emergency effort, supplies are stacking up in Yangon with only small trucks to get aid to some two million needy people.
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Soaring food prices forcing Filipinos into poverty: ADB
Soaring food prices are forcing millions of Filipinos into poverty, the Asian Development Bank said in a study released here Sunday.
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WFP starts food distribution in CHT
The United Nations World Food Programme has started distributing food assistance to meet the immediate food needs of over 1.2 lakh people affected by rodent attack in Rangamati and Bandarban. The WFP will continue to assist 25,680 households of the 31 most affected unions of the seven severely affected upazilas for a period of four months, from May to August 2008, said a press release.
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Irrigation power withdrawal fails to impact supply
Power situation continues worsening with the average generation this May falling below the generation during the same period in the past year amid assurance of the interim government of better power supply after mid-May. The frequency of power outages has increased in the past few days because of a decline in power generation although the power agencies started withdrawing supply from irrigation as the boro season nears end.
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Food prices to fall significantly if biofuel is banned: IFPRI
Prices of key food crops will fall significantly if the global community imposes a ban on crop-based production of biofuel, one of the key factors of recent food price increase, says a Washington-based research group. The price of maize will drop by 20 per cent, cassava by 14 per cent, sugar by 11 per cent and wheat by 11 per cent by 2010 in case of such moratoriums.
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More than 133,000 dead, missing in cyclone: Myanmar
Myanmar said Friday more than 133,000 people were dead or missing in the cyclone disaster, nearly doubling the toll from the worst disaster in the country's history, which hit two weeks ago. Even as the regime again rejected calls for international aid workers to help direct the massive relief effort, state media acknowledged that the scope of the disaster had prevented confirmation of the figures. State television said 77,738 were dead and 55,917 missing
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Forest authorities seem less serious about action against bird smuggling
The forest authorities concerned appear to have been less serious about taking action against bird smuggling, posing a serious threat to the livestock and poultry. Law enforcers and senior forest officials raided a house, No 22, on Road 13 in Sector 7 at Uttara and seized different species of rare birds from the possession of a Pakistani citizen, Mohammad Noman Uddin, on April 17.