March 9, 2007
Bangladesh to boot Burmese refugees from camp
March 8, 2007 About 6000 Burmese refugees living in makeshift camps in Bangladeshs Coxs Bazaar district have been ordered by the government to move, the United Nations office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said yesterday.
According to UNHCR, the unofficial refugee camps along the Naff River in Teknaf are set to be demolished as part of an attempt by Bangladeshs interim government to crackdown on illegal housing.
Pia Prytz Phiri, UNHCRs representative in Bangladesh yesterday condemned the government for ordering the refugees to move without any advanced warning.
We understand why the government doesn’t want them living there, but to move them without having prepared any solution in advance is not very humane, Pia Prytz Phiri said in a statement.
These people are of concern to us and we want to help them . . . it is hard to imagine human beings living in much more deplorable conditions than those in Teknaf, she said.
UNHCR said it had called for the Bangladesh governments cooperation in searches for new homes for the refugees, many of which are Rohingyas from Burmas Arakan State. The organisation said it had consistently been prevented by the authorities from helping the refugees.
Since the camps were formed in 2004, residents have faced constant pressure from the government to move.
We are under instructions to evacuate from this place, Noor Aysha, 25-year-old refugee was quoted by UNHCR as saying.
They are already doing evacuations [from another section of the camp] and of course we are worried. We don’t know where to go, she said.
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NYC cabbies from Bangladesh
Taking a look at where New York City’s 43,402 taxicab drivers are from: about 2,300 are American.
The top five countries of origin for NYC cabbies:
1. Bangladesh
2. Pakistan
3. India
4. Haiti
5. United States
Although there are currently only 13,000 yellow cabs in NYC, one driver said that many ex-cabbies keep their taxi licenses active as a back-up plan in case their current jobs don’t work out.
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March 8, 2007
Mystical Awareness
Revelations of colored lights occur to the initiate during his spiritual training: there are dots and spots and circles; the soul passes through periods of black color and of black and red spots until the appearance of the green color indicates that divine grace is near–green has always been considered the highest and heavenly color.
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March 7, 2007
Sufi note
Letters written with ink do not really exist qua letters. For the letters are but various forms to which meanings have been assigned through convention. What really and concretely exists is nothing but the ink. The existence of the letters is in truth no other than the existence of the ink which is the sole, unique reality that unfolds itself in many forms of self-modification. One has to cultivate, first of all, the eye to see the selfsame reality of ink in all letters, and then to see the letters as so many intrinsic modifications of the ink.
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November 26, 2006
Facing an uncertain future
According to a report by Human Rights Watch Asia in June 1995 probably more than a million women and children are employed in Indian brothels. Many are victims of trafficking through international borders, mostly Nepal and Bangladesh. Bombay has an estimated 100,000 brothel workers. Twenty percent of Bombay’s brothel population is thought to be girls under the age of eighteen.
Trafficking victims in India are subjected to conditions tantamount to slavery and to serious physical abuse. Held in debt bondage for years at a time, they are raped and subjected to other forms of torture, to severe beatings, exposure to AIDS, and arbitrary imprisonment. Many are young women from remote hill villages and poor border communities who are lured from their villages by local recruiters, relatives or neighbours promising jobs or marriage, and sold for very small amounts to brokers who deliver them to brothel owners in India for anywhere from Rs.15,000 to Rs.40,000 [$500-$1,333]. This purchase price (Human Rights Watch Asia report, 1995) becomes the “debt” that the women must work to pay off — a process that can stretch on indefinitely.
According to an AFP report at least 20,000 Bangladeshi women and children are trafficked to India and Pakistan and to Middle Eastern countries every year. According to a Times of India report an estimated 50,000 Bangladeshi girls are trafficked to or through India every year. The girls end up in brothels in India or Pakistan or in Middle Eastern or South Asian countries.
India shares a 4,222-kilometers border with 28 Bangladeshi districts. Bangladeshi traffickers have built up bases in the border districts of India. According to an Independent Bangladesh report an estimated 90 percent of trafficked women were forced to engage in prostitution. Reportedly, 400,000 Bangladeshi women are engaged in forced prostitution in India, and 300,000 Bangladeshi boys have been trafficked to India. According to one report, every day 50 Bangladeshi girls are lured across the Indian border and sold. Bangladeshi girls who are trafficked to India by organised networks usually end up in brothels in Kolkata or Mumbai.
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November 25, 2006
Bangladesh put in category of ‘flawed democracy’
Unb, Dhaka
Bangladesh ranks 75th among 165 democracies and is grouped in the category of “flawed democracy” in a global survey report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on November 24, as hassles hampered a smooth run of the past parliament and continued over the coming elections.
The EIU also put Bangladesh on the “negative list” with a caution that an unclear or disputed election result, to be overseen by the caretaker government, could trigger a political crisis and rollback of democracy.
Its democracy index is based on five categories: Electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.
Bangladesh’s overall score was 6.11, out of maximum of 10 band scores.
“The condition of having free and fair competitive elections, and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, is clearly the basic requirement of all definitions,” the report noted.
According to the report, although half of the world’s countries can be considered to be democracies, the number of “full democracies” is relatively low (only 28). As many as 54 are rated as “flawed democracies”. Of the remaining states, 55 are authoritarian and 30 considered “hybrid regimes”.
According to the EIU ranking, the top ten democracies are Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Australia, Canada and Switzerland. In the ranking, the US manages to come in at 17, with the UK following up at 23.
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November 23, 2006
Baby auctioned for $351 to pay micro-credit debt
POOR parents of a newborn child in southern Bangladesh auctioned off their baby to repay a loan from a local micro-credit bank.
The auction took place in the impoverished hamlet of Farhadabad in Fatikchari sub-district, 290km south of the capital, Dhaka, over the weekend, said the daily, Ittefaq.
The announcement of the sale attracted more than a dozen bidders, many coming from outside the district.
The newspaper, quoting local reporters, said the baby was sold at a price of 20,000 taka ($351).
Chikon Mia and Humaira Khatoon, parents of the baby, said they already had two children who they were barely able to feed.
“We do not have enough money to feed the two children. How can I possibly feed a third one?” Ms Khatoon asked.
The landless family fell into hard times and took out a small loan last year to tide them over an economic crisis. But the farming couple failed to repay the loan in time and plunged into deeper financial problems.
After the couple’s request to the bank to reschedule the unpaid loan was turned down, they put the baby up for auction.
Nearly 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s 130 million people live under the United Nation’s designated poverty line.
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