-M Zahidul Haque Montu Bhai is no more. He breathed his last at a hospital in Atlanta on 26 July 2017. The news of his sudden demise has deeply saddened us. It is hard to accept that Montu Bhai would…
Category: Life
Several days of rainfall puts Dhaka life in disarray
Roads were flooded. Traffic tailback was everywhere. Commuters were wading through rainwater. School-going children were falling out of rickshaws. These were the chaotic scenes people saw in the capital on Wednesday after hours of rain. Triggered by an active monsoon,…
Harmful surgery on intersex children unnecessary
Doctors in the United States continue to perform medically unnecessary surgeries that can inflict permanent harm on intersex children, Human Rights Watch and interACT said in a report released today. Despite decades of controversy over the procedures, doctors operate on…
How 137 million people’s lives in Asia are at flood risk
Khorsheeda Khatun had been left with nothing — then that too was washed away. The 28-year-old fled her home country of Myanmar in January with her two daughters, escaping the latest outbreak of violence, and was living in the Kutupalang…
Childeren above 9 at greater risk of dengue
The children who are older than six years are at a greater risk of dengue infection since they spend more time in crowded places like schools and parks, says a new study of icddr,b. Under the study, two household serosurveys…
Extreme weather wiping out hard-won GDP gains in hours
By Kenton X. Chance Brussels, Belgium, Jul 14 (IPS) – With Antigua and Barbuda joining St. Kitts and Nevis as the two eastern Caribbean nations to attain middle-income country status, a senior diplomat has identified climate change as a major…
Overnight rains cripples city life
Dhaka – Heavy overnight rains crippled the life in Dhaka as most of the roads, lanes and bylanes of different parts of the capital went under ankle to knee-deep water, causing immense hardship to the commuters and city dwellers. The…
Why war? Building on the legacies of Einstein, Freud and Gandhi
Robert J. Burrowes In 1932, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein conducted a correspondence subsequently published under the title ‘Why War?’ See ‘Why War: Einstein and Freud’s Little-Known Correspondence on Violence, Peace, and Human Nature’. https://www.transcend.org/tms/2015/04/why-war-einstein-and-freuds-little-known-correspondence-on-violence-peace-and-human-nature/ In many ways, this dialogue…
A journey along the Teesta river in Sikkim
Guest Blog by Gauri Noolkar-Oak A day later, I set out on the last leg of my journey – through Sikkim, to the source. The journey from Kalimpong to Singtam and further to Mangan was breathtaking. The mountains grew taller…
Obama making nostalgic visit to city of his childhood
Bogor – Former President Barack Obama and his family are set to visit his childhood home city of Jakarta at the end of their 10-day vacation to Indonesia, where they went whitewater rafting and visited an ancient Buddhist temple. –AP/UNB
The high cost of ageing
By Veena S. Kulkarni, Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha New Delhi, June 23 (IPS) – Evidence shows that health systems must be recast to accommodate the needs of chronic disease prevention.
Excessive use of arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury…black soils
By IPS World Desk Rome, June 23 (IPS) – Soils are polluted due mostly to human activities that leave excess chemicals in soils used to grow food, the United Nations reports.
Dhaka more expensive than Washington for expats
Dhaka, Jun 23 – Dhaka city is more expensive than Washington, capital of the United States in terms of cost of living for expatriates, according to Mercer’s 2017 Cost of Living Survey.
Drought to turn people into eternal migrants in Middle East?
By Baher Kamal Rome, Jun 13 (IPS) – Worldwide, land degradation, severe droughts and advancing desertification are set to force populations to flee their homes and migrate. In the specific case of the Middle East and North of Africa (MENA),…
Trade unions and the decline of social democracy
by Simon Otjes and Anne Rasmussen In the Dutch elections on 15 March, the Labour Party (PvdA) lost three quarters of their seats, falling from 25% to 6% of the vote. The fall of the Dutch social democrats parallels the…
Sunamganj flood-hit people passing Ramadan days in acute food crisis
Sunamganj – While Muslims around the world are celebrating the holy Ramadan with great significance, most low income people of the flood-hit Haor areas of the district are passing the days in acute food crisis. UNB news reported
An open letter to people with ‘mental health’ issues
Robert J. Burrowes As ‘mental health’ issues gain more attention, sympathetic and otherwise, in a wide variety of contexts and countries around the world, the opportunity for inaccurate perceptions of what causes these issues, and how to treat them, are…
Valuing water beyond the money
By Paula Fray Johannesburg, May 29 (IPS) – Amid the worst drought in a century, South Africans are kick-starting a global consultative process to agree on the values of water in a bid to ensure more equitable use of the…
“I’m All Right, Jack” In The Eurozone
by John Weeks False Dawn: Those of my generation will remember well 1959’s hilarious and biting satire on the British class system, “I’m all right, Jack”, which included several of the country’s most famous and best-loved comedy actors (Ian Carmichael,…
Everest climbers worried about oxygen bottle theft
Foreign climbers and Sherpas on Mount Everest are concerned about the increasing theft of oxygen bottles from high camps. They say it could threaten the lives of mountaineers because they each have a set supply for weather and traffic-related delays,…
8 years after Aila, an intractable crisis of freshwater
Satkhira – Eight years have passed since the deadly Cyclone Aila struck the south-west of Bangladesh on May 25, 2009. But many of the scars it left behind still remain, which means the ‘ghost of Aila’ still haunts the people…
No relief from scorching heat in ‘4 days’
Dhaka – Any relief from the searing heat seems unlikely as the prevailing heat wave may continue for 3-4 days more, according to Met office. UNB news reported
Happy Donald Trump with not-so-happy Pope Francis
Videos and photos of the President of The United States, Donald Trump, arriving in Rome, along with wife Melania Trump (who by the way, still does not want to hold hands with POTUS), were all over the Internet recently. Now,…
For 6 days, man stayed in a room with dead wife
A grieving husband in United Kingdom slept in the same room as his wife’s body for six days after her death. He did so to challenge the attitude that people have towards death.
Marching for a green and just future
By Tharanga Yakupitiyage UN, Apr 28 (IPS) – People around the world will be banding together to fight one of the world’s most pressing problems: climate change. Thousands are set to gather at the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C.…
Mind the Earth: A New Perspective
Dhaka – Having reached out to global audiences in Copenhagen, Paris and Marrakech, international photo exhibition ‘Mind the Earth: A New Perspective’ has arrived here with its founder and curator Kasper Brejnholt Bak. UNB news agency reported
Thai man kills baby, self on Facebook Live
Bangkok, Apr 26 (AP/UNB)- A man in Thailand upset with his wife hanged their 11-month-old daughter on Facebook Live and then killed himself, police said.
EU needs fair work-life balance
by Montserrat Mir Roca When the nuts and bolts of the long-awaited European Pillar of Social Rights are unveiled at the end of April, the European Commission will at the same time set out plans to achieve a better balance…
The ugly side of getting rich
In one photograph, the German-born, Harvard-educated hedge fund manager Florian Homm, who made and lost a personal fortune of more than $800 million, poses in a German brothel that he once co-owned. In another, Imelda Marcos, the former first lady…
Rana Plaza tragedy: 42.4pc survivors still jobless
Dhaka – Some 57.6 percent survivors of Rana Plaza collapse are engaged in various types of wage and self-employments, while 42.4 percent claimed that they are jobless, shows a recent survey. UNB news agency reported