News stories by Naimul Haq, page 4

COMILLA, Bangladesh, Aug 23 (IPS) - Seven months pregnant, 24-year-old Shumi Begum has travelled 220 km from her village with her paternal grandmother to consult a specialist on childbirth.

DHAKA, Jul 16 (IPS) - When it comes to media, Bangladesh boasts some impressive statistics: it has the largest number of outlets among the world's least developed countries (LDCs), including 50 nationwide dailies, of which eight are English-language newspapers; 25 television channels; seven FM radio stations; 14 community radio channels and over 300 regional magazines published in English and Bengali.

RANGPUR, Bangladesh, Jul 05 (IPS) - Shirin Aktar was just 13 years old when her parents decided it was time for her to get married.

CHAPAINAWABGANJ, Bangladesh, May 22 (IPS) - Fahima Begum rises each morning at dawn and walks two kilometres to a small pond, the nearest source of fresh water. On her way she passes the rusty old hand-pumped tube well that used to supply water to her village in Bangladesh's arid Barind region until the water table here dropped out of reach.

DHAKA, May 20 (IPS) - "It was dark and hot with choking dust all around. The air was filled with the smell of decomposing corpses," recalled Nasima, a 24-year-old factory worker who spent four days buried under the rubble of an eight-storey building that collapsed in a suburb of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka last month.

DHAKA, May 08 (IPS) - Adding to a long list of domestic woes, including a factory collapse that left hundreds dead last month, Bangladesh is now grappling with a wave of violence that threatens to deepen the gulf between secular sections of society and religious fundamentalists.

DHAKA, May 07 (IPS) - Adaptation and mitigation. Identified by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and by scientists as the two major responses to address the problem, these were also the twin preoccupations of a climate change conference held recently in Dhaka.

DHAKA, Mar 21 (IPS) - "This is a revolution," declares Mamtaj Jahan Halima, a young law student from Bangladesh's southwestern Khulna district. "People of all ages, irrespective of religion, caste and culture have united – we have not witnessed such a peaceful uprising since before independence."

DHAKA, Mar 20 (IPS) - When nine-month-old Borsha was admitted to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh last January, she was on the verge of death.

CHAPAINAWABGANJ, Bangladesh, Feb 21 (IPS) - The sun is just beginning its descent as a knot of farmers gathers around a small, portable radio in the grounds of the Nachol Pilot High School in Bangladesh's northwestern Chapainawabganj district, about 300 kilometres from the capital, Dhaka.