News stories by Naimul Haq, page 7

Char Nongolia village is a basket case when it comes to climate change impacts such as increasing salinity, frequent cyclones, tidal surges, erratic rainfall and extended droughts.

Reducing poverty in Bangladesh will depend critically on sustaining the successes of the country’s microcredit (MC) programmes, says Muhammad Yunus, the economist who shared the 2006 Nobel peace prize with his creation, Grameen Bank.

Jasinta Nokrek loves nothing better than to range through the dense Modhupur forest, the way her Garo tribal ancestors have always done.

Phulo Rani Pal checks for loose dust around her open backyard kitchen. It’s time to prepare the sweets she supplies to vendors and it will not do for her products to be contaminated.

Amidst despair and poverty, women in some remote villages of Bangladesh are raising money and lending it to each other through a unique microfinance programme launched by a local non-government organisation.

The ship breaking companies of Bangladesh continue to import highly toxic foreign vessels despite a two-year-old ban, and are also defying a court order to ensure workers’ safety and implement environmentally sound practices, a group of lawyers says.

Bangladeshi women are pushing government to implement the recently approved National Women Development Policy (NWDP) 2011, which has met with strong resistance from Islamic clergy.

One sunny afternoon, 19-year-old Sufia Aktar presides over a courtyard gathering of housewives discussing the use of safe water, a hygienic environment, and personal cleanliness. It is the last of such gatherings for Sufia, who will soon leave, knowing it was 'mission accomplished.'

Bangladesh’s garment factories and overseas recruiting agencies have pledged to employ a substantial number of Bangladeshi expatriates returning from politically volatile Libya, following the violent crackdown on opposition forces by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime there.

Twenty-one years ago, Munni Akter and her husband Shafiuddin could hardly afford two meals a day.