June 13, 2007
June 12, 2007
Landslides kill 75 in southeastern Bangladesh
Dhaka, June. 11: At least 75 people including 15 children were killed while several others were feared dead in a series of landslides in the southeastern port city of Chittagong as torrential rains paralysed life in most parts of Bangladesh.
“We have so far recovered 75 bodies and the rescue operation is underway to find more bodies,” disaster management secretary Dhiraj Malakar told newsmen in Dhaka.
The worst-hit area in the hilly port city was Lebubagan near a military cantonment where 26 bodies were pulled out from under the debris of their homes which collapsed due to the landslides, officials and witnesses said.
The rest of the bodies were recovered from Kusumbagh, Bayezid Bostami and Pahartali areas and Chittagong University campus on the outskirts of the city.
The army, police and hundreds of local volunteers joined hands with fire servicemen in the rescue efforts, which intensified after mid-day today with the start of ebb tide which started draining water to the sea, Malakar said.
Military bulldozers joined fire service rescuers and volunteers to remove tonnes of sludge in search of more bodies at nearly 50 different landslide spots.
Officials in Chittagong said at least 103 injured people were being treated at different health facilities including Combined Military Hospital (CMH) and Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
In Bayezid Bostami area, the entire family of a police head constable was killed while another five-member family was buried alive at Shaheed Minar areas in the landslides. One Sub-inspector was electrocuted at Pahartoli area.
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June 11, 2007
Bird flu spreads in Bangladesh, more fowls culled
Bird flu has spread to another district in Bangladesh forcing authorities to cull 3,000 more chickens over the last two days, officials said on Sunday.
The infected chickens were found at a farm in Dinajpur district 450 km northwest of the capital Dhaka.
With the latest cull, some 160,000 chickens have now been slaughtered and 1.5 million eggs destroyed on 62 farms in 12 districts since the virus was first detected at six farms at Savar near Dhaka in March.
There have been no reported cases of human infection.
More than 100,000 farms have been inspected and some 125 million chickens vaccinated since the outbreak emerged, a fisheries and livestock ministry statement said.
The World Bank last week pledged more than $ 30 million to a Bangladesh project to fight bird flu until 2012.
Earlier last month the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Bangladesh needed a long-term strategy to control the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
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Nicaragua leader in Iran, calls for new world order
TEHRAN – Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who wants more aid from the United States, called on Sunday for a new world order to replace “capitalism and imperialism”, at the start of a trip to arch U.S. foe Iran.
His comments echoed some remarks by his Iranian counterpart who often attacks “imperialist” and “arrogant powers”, although Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a more vehement critic of Washington.
Ortega has raised eyebrows in Washington, which broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980, for forging ties with the Islamic Republic. But the Nicaraguan president said he did not need permission about who to befriend.
“We have chosen our friends by our own will and we haven’t got permission from anyone,” Ortega said shortly after arriving in Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported.
“In negotiation with America we have explained our personal and political positions towards imperialism … Imperialism and capitalism should be removed and we should create a peaceful and friendly world,” Ortega added.
Ortega, a Cold War-era enemy of Washington, had earlier said he would travel to Iran on a jet loaned to him by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, a former U.S. foe who has been developing better ties with Washington.
The Nicaraguan president, like Ahmadinejad, is also an ally of U.S. antagonist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
The Iran trip will focus in part on getting Iranian investment in Nicaraguan factories that build tractors and other agricultural equipment, Ortega said before the visit. Business links were a topic when Ahmadinejad visited Managua in January.
“In this trip (by Ortega), the agreements between the two countries which were agreed in Nicaragua will be finalised and put into effect,” Ahmadinejad said, IRNA reported.
State media also quoted Ahmadinejad saying Nicaragua had been wounded by “the lashes of colonialism”. Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla who fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels during his 1980s government, later on Sunday met Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Today America is the most hated government in the world,” Khamenei told him, the ISNA news agency reported.
Ortega said according to the same news agency: “Today America is isolated among other nations.”
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Nicas Learning with Cuban Literacy Method
Managua — Nicaraguans who are expected to work in the literacy campaign as of July 17 in this country started to become familiar with the Cuban audio-visual method “Yo Si Puedo” (Yes, I Can).
The Education Ministry issued a release that the First Methodological Workshop was given in this capital on Saturday by Orlando Gutierrez, chief of the Cuban pedagogical advisors.
The aim, states the text, is to spread the literacy method among activists from the country’s departments and autonomous regions, to organize and develop the National Literacy Campaign “From Marti to Fidel.”
The drive, whose goal is to declare Nicaragua free of illiteracy by 2009, bears the names of the Cuban National Hero and the president of the island, in appreciation of the Cuban support, Education Minister Miguel De Castilla stated.
In addition to the “Yo Si Puedo,” which allows an illiterate person to read and write in only six weeks, the Caribbean island has offered the Central American country pedagogical assessment and all technical equipment for the campaign.
The new Cuban method is being implemented in Nicaragua since 2005, after the arrival of the first TVs, VHS-format videos and Cuban teachers to back the work of the Carlos Fonseca Amador Education Association.
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