travel news review


19 April '99
Demonstrations in the old district of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka have turned ugly. 20 protesters were injured - two of them critically - by police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. The demonstration was to protest power and water supply disruptions.

9 April '99
Hot on the heels of the historic first run of a bus service between Lahore and Delhi comes the first dry run of the Dhaka-Calcutta bus service. The service will be the only overland public transport between the Bangladeshi and West Bengali capitals, and will vastly simplify access to Bangladesh for travellers and locals.

15 February '99
In a bid to clear the air, Bangladeshi authorities have announced a plan to phase out two-stroke engines over the next five years. The Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka contains more lead in its air than any other major city in the world, and it is hoped the ban, affecting auto-rickshaws and tempos, will improve air cleanliness. An immediate ban on imports of two-stroke vehicles is already in place. It has posed the question of how about 50,000 registered drivers of auto-rickshaws and tempos will earn their crust. One solution is to replace the two-stroke with battery-operated engines such as those used in Nepal. The laws do not affect the manually-operated rickshaws, which are estimated to number over 300,000 in Dhaka alone, most of them unregistered.

19 February '99
Indian health authorities are confident that within three years they will have eradicated leprosy as a public health problem. Their confidence springs from the results of a national campaign conducted over the past 12 months in conjunction with the World Health Organisation [WHO] to isolate hidden incidences of the disease. A public health problem is defined as an incidence rate of over one per 10,000 members of the population. Bhutan, Maldives, Thailand and Sri Lanka have already bettered this target, while Myanmar, Bangladesh and Indonesia expect to reach it by the end of next year.

India currently accounts for 65% of leprosy infections worldwide. Contrary to common opinion, leprosy is curable at all stages of onset, is mostly non-infectious and, in the 30% of infectious cases, multi-drug therapy renders the patient non-infectious within a few days.

25 January '99
Bangladeshi authorities have dispelled fears that Bangladesh's poisoned groundwater problem is affecting the national capital, Dhaka. Previousl studies in rural Bangladesh have indicated that otherwise pure, clean artesian water in many villages contains arsenic absorbed from the soil. Prolonged ingestion can lead to problems including skin disease and cancer. The Bangladeshi authorities reassured Dhaka residents and visitors that the soil under their city would be more likely to absorb arsenic from water, rather than the other way around.

8 January '99
In an attempt to curb illegal immigration and smuggling between India and Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal has announced plans to build a fence between the two countries. Nearly 900 km (1450 mi) of fence will be erected, almost half the total length of the border.

25 September '98
Over the past two months, Bangladesh has suffered the worst flooding recorded in the country this century. More than 54,400 sq km (21,255 sq mi) of the country are now under water, 1300 people have died and the floods have caused $900 million worth of damage. Officials have declared a health emergency across the country and the government says full economic recovery will take years.

Bangladesh has appealed for international assistance, particularly food and medical relief and construction materials. According to the World Health Organisation, travellers intending to visit Bangladesh should take extra health precautions against water-borne diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and cholera. At this stage however, there are no epidemics of these diseases in Bangladesh.

28 July '98
Three weeks of rain in low-lying Bangladesh have resulted in major flooding across the country. The three main rivers - the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna - have all broken their banks, isolating more than 10 million people, closing schools and businesses and causing serious concern among health authorities. Reports of deaths from water-borne dysentery and diarrhea are increasing daily, with some 30,000 reported illnesses from contaminated water. Although the rain in north of the country has receded, flooding continues in the southern and central areas of the country.

29 April '98
Fears of violence by several religious and opposition groups have forced the organisers of a Miss Beautiful Bangladesh contest to cancel the event. Islamic religious groups calling the contest un-Islamic and exploitative of women have also denounced the contest as obscene in a country where most people barely have enough to eat. WomenÆs groups in Bangladesh, more concerned with rape and sexual abuse, have not become embroiled in the beauty contest debate.

4 March '98
Artesian water hand-drawn from pumps, promoted by the government for almost 20 years as a source of clean water, has been linked to cancers in villagers from the south of the country. Tests conducted on samples from many villages show that the water is clean and bacterially pure but contains natural arsenic, which can lead to poisoning, skin disease and cancer when regularly ingested over many years.