By Naimul Haq Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jan 16 (IPS) – With discussions underway between Bangladesh and Myanmar about the repatriation of more than a half a million Rohingya refugees, many critical questions remain, including how many people would be allowed back,…
Mostafa Kamal Majumder A smart girl in her late twenties, Mazeda works as the receptionist-cum-telephone operator at the Bangladesh Protibnadhi Kallyan Somity complex at Dakkhin Khan Area, on the northeastern fringe of Dhaka City. A newcomer will find it hard…
By Tharanga Yakupitiyage UN, Jan 15 (IPS) – Amid concerns that 160 people may have drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean this week alone, the UN refugee agency have urged countries to offer more resettlement places.
By Naimul Haq Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jan 14 (IPS) – The repatriation of Rohingya refugees driven from their villages through violence and terror appears uncertain, with critics saying the agreement legalising the process of their return is both controversial and impractical.…
Since independence in 1991 the Baltic states have implemented neoliberal economic policies with weak social systems and income and wealth distribution that is among the most unequal in the European Union. Among the consequences is large-scale outward migration. At independence…
Legazpi, Jan 15 (AP/UNB) — More than 9,000 people have evacuated the area around the Philippines’ most active volcano as lava flowed down its crater Monday in a gentle eruption that scientists warned could turn explosive. The Philippine Institute of…
Researchers find that much of the damage done by being poor comes from feeling poor. By Elizabeth Kolbert In 2016, the highest-paid employee of the State of California was Jim Mora, the head coach of U.C.L.A.’s football team. (He has…
Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., 14 January — The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), has today launched the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation, with the support of the governments of Germany, Norway and the United Arab Emirates. The Commission…
Dhaka, Jan 14 – Some new bookstores, opened over the last one year in the city , offer booklovers not only an array of local and international books but also a cozy environment with the arrangement of light refreshments.
By Jonathan Cook Nazareth: The scandal surrounding Priti Patel, who was forced to resign as Britain’s international aid minister last week after secret meetings with Israeli officials during a “family holiday”, offers a small, opaque window on the UK’s powerful…
Charlotte Aubin Paris – For much of Africa, the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy is seen as an environmental imperative. With fossil fuels comprising a majority – as high as 70% in some cases – of…
Addressing the changes and the fracture in the relationship between the citizen and society has been a matter of great importance for me throughout my Presidency. It is a relationship that was fraying long before the onset of the Global…
Some 58 percent of news consumers have their doubts on reliability of news dished out to them every day while 24 percent put their trust on the news carried by media in Bangladesh partially and another 14 percent completely. A…
There seems to be no end in sight for the Bitcoin bubble. This comes close to the great bubble developments that we have known in history, including the tulip bulb bubble in sixteenth century Holland, the South Sea bubble in…
By rt.com Washington is militarizing the Asia-Pacific, “pumping” weapons and kit into Japan and South Korea in an “absolutely disproportionate” response to the North Korean threat, the Russian Foreign Minister said. Tokyo won’t be calling the shots, he warned.
UN ESCAP Regional Consultation Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration 6-8 November 2017 – Statement of Asia and the Pacific The result of the process that civil society in Asia has drawn out after a series of consultations…
Robert J. Burrowes A long-standing French protectorate briefly occupied by Japan during World War II, Cambodia became independent in 1953 as the French finally withdrew from Indochina. Under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia remained officially neutral, including during…
“Inequality is the defining issue of our time”. This is what then US President Barack Obama said about inequality at the end of 2013. Almost half a decade later we unfortunately have to conclude that it still is one of…
By Busani Bafana Jo’burg, Jan (IPS) – Conditioned that ploughing is the sure way to produce crops, Zimbabwean farmer Handrixious Zvomarima surprised himself by trying a different method. He planted cowpea seeds directly without tilling the land. It worked.
By Kelly Levin We’re only a few days into the new year, but it’s already off to an extreme start. Washington DC, Jan 6 2018 (IPS) – Parts of the United States are experiencing blizzard and record low temperatures, with…
By Stuart Rutherford Washington DC, Jan 8 (IPS) – Bangladeshis have a long tradition of borrowing from family, neighbors and other informal sources. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have proliferated over the past three decades and offer a more formal loan service…
The rise of robots is inevitable, but the associated grim predictions around job losses aren’t. Asian Development Bank vice president Stephen Groff explains how countries can prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. By Stephen Groff A knitting factory in Bangladesh…
Report from BRAC • A total of 655,000 forcibly-displaced Myanmar nationals have entered Bangladesh since 25 August (Source: ISCG report, 31 December) • BRAC’s total coverage (based on sanitation) is 638,600 people with installation of 15,965 latrines (16 today). BRAC…
As many as 28 children are murdered and 49 raped in Bangladesh every month, according to a report by Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), a network of non-government organisations.
Donald Trump’s administration has decided to cancel permits that allow nearly 200,000 people from El Salvador to live and work in the US. They were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) after earthquakes rocked the Central American country in 2001.
The groundbreaking court brought many of the war’s worst criminals to justice, but more is needed to heal the region’s deep divisions. By Benjamin Ward and Param-Preet Singh Hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children…
Dhaka, Jan 9 – The Jatiya Sangsad on Tuesday passed the “Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Bill, 2018” aimed at providing with better health services riding on the improvement in technology and medical science in the country.
Canberra, Jan 9 (AP/UNB) — Same-sex couples married in midnight ceremonies across Australia on Tuesday after the country’s last legal impediment to gay marriage expired.
Attorney General Sessions to Crack Down on Marijuana Jasmine L. Tyler US Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviving the US government’s out-of-date, ineffective, and counterproductive war on drugs. Today it was reported that he will rescind the 2013 Cole Memo,…
Savar, Dhaka – The Creator’s love is attained thru service to the paralyzed. Joys lie in service, said Valery A Taylor, the founder and coordinator of ‘Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed (CRP)’.