The expansion of capitalism, through globalisation and imperialism, has caused social exclusion, poverty and environmental degradation in Bangladesh, writes Sabrina Syed.
Bangladesh
International Centre for Climate Change and Development's Noor-E-Elahi speaks to Susan Price about how climate-induced catastrophes are impacting on Bangladesh and its fight against COVID-19.
To date, there have been no cases of COVID-19 among the close to a million Rohingya refugees currently sheltering at camps in southern Bangladesh, writes Paul Gregoire. However, the danger of a mass outbreak is very real.
In the backstreets of Dhaka’s Mirpur precinct, towards the end of lunch time on a Friday, streams of garment workers make their way back towards the gates of the factories where they produce clothing for the Global North for as little as 39 cents an hour.
These workers are the unseen faces behind the ridiculously low price tags attached to clothing marked “Made in Bangladesh” in discount department stores around the world, writes Paul Gregoire.
Rohingya refugees living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh are just surviving, as they look towards the day when they can return to their homeland, writes Paul Gregoire.
Paul Gregoire travelled to Bangladesh and met with climate experts and communities bearing the brunt of the climate emergency.
Garment manufacturers in Bangladesh agreed to raise workers’ pay, commerce minister Tipu Munshi said on January 13, urging people to return to work after a week of violent demonstrations, TeleSUR English said.
Protests initiated by students of Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School and College have left Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, in turmoil. The protests were launched after two year 11 students Abdul Karim Rajib and Dia Khanam Meem were killed by speeding buses on July 29.
The undersigned Asia-Pacific left parties and organisations condemn the violent repression of the peaceful protests by students in Bangladesh.
The Rana Plaza collapse claimed more than 1000 lives — and showed management’s contempt for the safety of workers. Marienna Pope-Weidemann reports on the struggle for better conditions for garment workers in Bangladesh.
As Hurricane Harvey continues to batter Texas and Louisiana in the United States, where nearly 30 people are reported dead, the flooding and landslides that have swept Bangladesh, India and Nepal for weeks have killed more than 1,200 people and displaced millions so far.
Western media, for the most part, has paid little attention to the catastrophic flooding that has swept these South Asian regions.
Calls to stop a government crackdown on trade unionists and garment workers in Bangladesh have paid off as the 35 activists who were arrested in a series of December raids have been released.
However, major problems remain in the country’s garment industry as the government neglects to fully comply with its labour and human rights commitments.
Suspected Islamist militants hacked to death a leading gay rights activist and a friend in an apartment in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on April 25, TeleSUR English reported that day.
The killings came just two days after a university professor was murdered in similar fashion in an attack claimed by ISIS.
Fadang Randal is a representative of the United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti — PCJSS), who visited Australia in September. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's Tony Iltis
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The PCJSS is working for the social and political rights of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
We are very much concerned now with the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord — a treaty signed in 1997 between the government and the PCJSS.
Two years after the 2013 factory collapse in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, that killed more than 1100 people, the victims' families filed a lawsuit in a US federal court on April 24. It targets Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other US-based companies that sourced their products from the Rana factory.
The plaintiffs claim the retailers knew “that Bangladesh factories had an extremely poor record of workplace safety standards and industrial building standards, including garment factories”.
Greece, Venezuela discuss cooperation
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has invited the newly-elected Greek prime minister to Caracas, TeleSUR English said on February 9.
“I have invited Alexis Tsipras, comrade Alexis, to visit us as soon as he can, here in Venezuela,” Maduro told Venezuelan public TV.
“He plans to come to Latin America. He mentioned all the pressures that he is under. Because of a savage, savage neoliberal system that has been applied in Greece.”
Tsipras expressed an interest in touring Latin America, starting with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
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