UNICEF report: economic downturn aggrevates problems in bangladesh.

[Michin Khel]

NICEF’s survey in Bangladesh has
revealed that nearly 60% of
households do not have sufficient
food, leading to higher percentages
of malnourished children. The
growing economic crisis, food insecurity and weakening health
are creating an alarming situation
in the country. Dhaka: There's a sense of urgency as health workers wind their way along
tiny rickety alleys, past the washing,
cooking and cleaning in Kachukhet
Bazaar, one of Dhaka's sprawling
slums. Their mission takes them door to door,
giving out small sachets of
micronutrient powder. The health
workers explain to mothers how to
add the powder to ready-to eat-food
for infants. It contains zinc to mitigate the effects of diarrhoea, iron to
prevent anaemia and iodine to
enhance brain development, as well as
minerals and multi-vitamins. Mothers in the slum, who have been
giving their babies the micronutrients
for some months now, have started to
notice the difference. "My child is doing a lot better," said
Rupa Maidul Islam as 12-month-old
Nupur bounced on her knee. "She has
been gaining weight since she's been
getting this powder. Two-thirds of income on food But according to a recent survey by
UNICEF Bangladesh, the World Food
Programme and the Institute of Public
Health Nutrition, the hardest of times
are still ahead for Bangladesh. For the
past two years, forces beyond the country's control have conspired
against the poorest. An extreme cyclone and floods
devastated crops in 2007. Trade
barriers and export bans, imposed by
India, doubled the price of rice in
March last year. By the end of 2008, households were
spending two-thirds of their income
on food – up from 50% in 2000.
Already, even after a good harvest,
nearly 60% of households in
Bangladesh do not have sufficient food. "Acute malnutrition among children is
dangerously close to emergency
levels" The survey showed a clear link
between malnutrition and household
food insecurity, as food-insecure
households had higher percentages
of malnourished children. Almost half
of all Bangladeshi children under five years of age are moderately to
severely underweight. Nearly 40% of
the same children are stunted. A silent emergency "Looking at malnutrition, there has
been no progress since the '90s," said
UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh
Carel de Rooy. "That is why it's a silent
emergency. That is the situation today
– and during this period there has been good economic growth." The micronutrients distributed by
UNICEF and partners have helped, but
a lot more support is needed. Acute
malnutrition among children is
dangerously close to emergency
levels. Huge food price hikes last year led to a spiral of borrowing. And now
the world economic crisis is leading to
job losses. Moti Kahn is one of the many victims of
the economic crisis in far-off lands.
Since he came back from working
Malaysia, his family has had to cut back
on all the basics. Widespread job losses "I was so embarrassed [that] I had no
savings. My children expected me to
give them at least one gift when I
came back," he said. "They look up to
me and they're dependent on me.
They say: 'You've been working abroad. You must have something.'
But I haven't even bought a single
piece of new clothing for anybody in
the family." Kahn is not alone. In his village in the
Gazipur district, a recruitment agent
said he is no longer trying to find
Bangladeshi workers for jobs in the
Persian Gulf countries and Malaysia. He
said he hadn't bothered since December, because there are just no
jobs. Malaysia recently cancelled work
visas for 55 000 Bangladeshis. In response to this 'silent emergency',
UNICEF Bangladesh and its partners
are working to strengthen food
security in the areas of greatest need.
They are also working on nutrition
surveillance to allow early detection of changes in child nutrition and health,
and in the food-security status of
vulnerable families.

[faye]

the rulers in developing countries often put their money into their pockets or into becoming european clones, with all those shiny flash developments, space programs, military spending etc. and forget about the lower classes. it is deplorable.

[Bengal_Tiger]

The main problem in Bangladesh is not what some call "flashy developments", as these are all required for employment creation, and attracting foreign investment.

Bangladesh has progressed in the field of reducing poverty and has reduced it by 10% every 5 years, including in important human index. However the main problem is corruption.

However even though we have a far from perfect government, run by the daughter of the man who kicked Luffy-style thieves and traitors out of Bangladesh, they are focusing on universal education and poverty reduction. A simple propaganda piece by bitter Punjabi nationlist Luffy, angry and bitter that he lost the 1971 war and was humiliated, doesn't give a complete picture. Don't be misled by this thief.

In education, Bangladesh is much better than India, Pakistan and Nepal. Only nine percent people of poor households have their children not attending schools in Bangladesh.

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=148076

Yet during the last 12 years, Bangladesh has made important development gains. Both population growth and the incidence of poverty have steadily declined, and gross domestic product growth rate has averaged 6 percent per year. The proportion of the population living below the national poverty line has fallen to 40 percent in 2005 from 59 percent in 1991. Considerable progress has been made toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, notably in health and education. Successful and peaceful elections were held in December 2008.

http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida...D-12915389-S7Y

This is an old, out of date report and since that time the poverty rate has decreased even more and is now at 30%, at this rate in 2015 it will be 20% and than at 2010 it will be 10%.

What is needed is job creation, which needs amongst other things FDI (foreign direct investment). However FDI can only happen when Bangladesh has good infrastructure and sorted out its power problem, which is currently on the forefront of the government's agenda.

We are following in the path which has proved successful for Indonesia, South Korea and others.

To say that the country should not have any modern developments in addition to providing universal education is ignorant and naive.

For almost quarter of a century thieves like Luffy were looting Bangladesh from "West Pakistan". East Pakistan was a next exporter due to jute, whilst West Pakistan home of thieves like Luffy was costing more money than it made. West Pakistan was essentially living off East Pakistan as a parasite.

Then in 1971 we smashed the NAPAK army and defeated traitors like Luffy who refused to accept elections and decided to carry out massacres. They are still bitter and angry at this defeat and humiliation at our hands, even though they stole and robbed for 1/4 a century then carried out a bloodbath.

On top of this after the 1971 war we had to carry our share all our debts of the united Pakistan, but got none of the assets. This is pure theft.

However Allah is just and now we see that Pakistan is a failed terrorist state hated by the rest of the world, all of the Muslims in its region and a place where farmers commit suicide, where 12 people were killed in Lakki Marwat recently, home to around 1 million internal refugees from Waziristan and so forth.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Mass suicides threatened

Published: August 19, 2011

OUR STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE – The Punjab Paramedics Alliance has threatened to stage a sit-in and commit collective suicide on September 7 if notification for the implementation of revised service structure was not issued till the given date.

Addressing a Press conference here at Lahore Press Club on Thursday, PPA Chairman Malik Munir Ahmed flanked by other officebearers said that the Punjab Finance Department was not implementing revised service structure approved by the Punjab Chief Minister in February 2010. All the participants had wrapped their bodies in white cloth to express the resolve that they were ready for final rituals to press for the demand of implementation of revised service structure.

Stressing upon the Punjab CM to ensure immediate issuance of the notification, Malik Munir said that the paramedics would go to the extent of committing collective suicide on September 7 if their legitimate demand was not fulfilled till that date. He said that the Punjab government and unbridled bureaucracy would be responsible for all the consequences. He said that the paramedics in all other federating units were given service structure and channel of promotion way back in 2006 but those in the biggest province were still deprived of their due rights. He said that the paramedics were not going for the option of strike only to avoid inconvenience to the suffering humanity. He said that strike of paramedics could cause a more deaths than 34 day medics strike in the province.

attendance: Health Secretary Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan has directed the Medical Superintendents to spend most of their office time visiting different departments and enquiring after health of patients instead of sitting at offices.

Chairing a meeting held here Thursday to review performance of hospitals in district Nankana Sahib, he said that every EDO health would have to submit a certificate to the department by August 21 regarding punctuality and presence of doctors and other staff at the health facilities. Jehanzeb said that special teams would check attendance of staff and the EDO Health concerned would also be held responsible for any irregularity. The meeting was informed that construction work at THQ Hospital Shah Kot was in progress and it would cost Rs 165 million. So for, Rs 60 million have been spent on this project. Moreover, the construction of THQ Hospital Sangla Hill was also in the final phase. The buildings of both the hospitals were near completion.

The Health Secretary directed the officials to ensure completion of both the projects by December 31. The EDO Health apprised the meeting regarding the shortage of specialists, MOs and other paramedics in the health facilities of District Nankana Sahib. The Health Secretary issued necessary instructions to the officers of the department for filling the vacant posts for improving working of these hospitals.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...des-threatened

Even paramedics are threatening sucide in Pakistan and not just the Taliban.

[Bengal_Tiger]

In Pakistan, suicide bombings are part of rhythm of life

Before 9/11, Pakistan had only one suicide bombing. Since then, it's had 290, killing at least 4,600 people. Pakistanis seem to be accustomed to the violence, which they blame largely on the U.S.



Reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan—
A decade ago, Peshawar's bomb squad had it pretty easy.

Occasionally, one of its 20 members would be dispatched to a cornfield to defuse a mine planted by a villager who was feuding with his neighbor. Bombs were small and crude; the only tools an officer needed were pliers and a roll of electrical tape.

Because their budget was minuscule, the officers traveled by taxi.

Today, the squad careens through week after week of carnage and peril in this volatile city near the Afghan border. One day members are defusing a partially detonated explosive vest strapped to the torso of a dead militant, the next they are surveying evidence left behind by a teenage suicide bomber. The squad has grown to 113 members. Nine have died in the line of duty. At least five others have been maimed.

"Everything changed drastically after 9/11," said Khan Zada, a veteran of 17 years. "Now we're on the go all of the time."

Neither the men who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States nor any of Al Qaeda's top leaders were from Pakistan. But much as 9/11 changed the way America viewed the world, it also cut deeply into Pakistan's collective psyche. Pakistanis sum it up with a simple maxim: In Pakistan, they say, every day is 9/11.

Pakistan's relations with the U.S. have for decades been tainted by mutual mistrust. In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-President Pervez Musharraf faced an ultimatum from Washington to cooperate in the drive to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and oust the Al Qaeda leader's Taliban hosts in Afghanistan.

When Musharraf consented, however, he threatened a long, cozy relationship between Pakistani authorities and Islamic militants. As Pakistan began helping Washington's campaign against the militants, it became a target itself. Analysts say that in the years since, some of Pakistan's own policy choices have made matters worse.

Ties between Pakistan's military and intelligence community and Afghan Taliban leaders stretch back to the 1980s, when Pakistan and the CIA armed and backed many of those same figures as they fought Soviet occupation. Although the Pakistani government won't acknowledge it, those ties still exist.

Moreover, the country's primary spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, nurtured militant groups that targeted India in retaliation for its occupation of the disputed Kashmir region. Relationships with Islamic militant groups were a handy cudgel against external enemies that Pakistan did not want to openly confront. And until 9/11, those militant groups never viewed the Pakistani state as a villain.

That changed as the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and Bin Laden and scores of militants streamed into the barren, lawless badlands of Pakistan's tribal belt along the Afghan border.

In cooperation with the U.S., Pakistan captured Ramzi Binalshibh, a planner of the 9/11 attacks, in September 2002. Six months later, Inter-Services Intelligence arrested mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Meanwhile, Bin Laden disappeared in Pakistan, limiting himself to increasingly rare pronouncements until May, when Navy SEALs landed in his Abbottabad compound and killed him.

And Pakistan started paying a heavy price.

Before 9/11, Pakistan had suffered just one suicide bombing — a 1995 attack on the Egyptian Embassy in the capital, Islamabad, that killed 15 people. In the last decade, suicide bombers have struck Pakistani targets more than 290 times, killing at least 4,600 people and injuring 10,000.

The country averaged nearly six terrorist attacks of various kinds each day in 2010, according to a report by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies.

A country that had regarded suicide bombs as a faraway problem suddenly found itself in the market for bomb disposal armor, bomb-sniffing dogs and blast walls. In Islamabad, which once had the pace and feel of a leafy suburb, metal detectors now greet patrons of a wide range of establishments, including fast-food restaurants and libraries.

Today, Pakistanis wonder whether the young man next to them at a bazaar or neighborhood mosque is wearing a vest packed with explosives and ball bearings under his tunic.

Some, like Islamabad university student Aqif Naeem, stopped going to mosques altogether. "Now I just pray in my room," Naeem said.

Resentment toward the U.S. has grown. Pakistanis blame the United States for much of what has gone wrong in their country: the rise in terrorist attacks, the deaths of Pakistani soldiers battling militants in the tribal areas, the country's economic tailspin. Many are incensed by Washington's campaign of drone strikes against militants in the tribal areas.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,7752766.story

[Bengal_Tiger]

I have edited this thread which was about a tragic suicide of a man and his family in Karachi. Suffice to say may Allah have mercy on their souls and may Allah protect us from their fate.

I have also edited out other threads about Pakistan which were a reaction to Luffy the thief. I have never really posted anti-Pakistan threads, though I have commented on Pakistan threads started by others and feel I should not go down to the low standards of Luffy the thief and Shahbaz MQM-walla.


There are also cases of suicide in rural Sindh and even in relatively "prosperous" Lahore in Punjab, so poverty is a major problem in Pakistan with its nuclear bomb, 1/2 a million army, failed terrorist state and corrupt elite.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Australia not immune to child poverty

It should be good news for Australia. According to UNICEF, the number of Australian children living in poverty has fallen in the past decade significantly. However, the report has also highlighted there is still one in seven Australian children who has not escaped poverty - the impact of which some say has long-term consequences across society.
The United Nations Children's Emergency Fund's latest study into poverty in rich countries compares conditions in 26 OECD nations. It defines poverty as having an income below 50 per cent of the national median - which in Australia translates to about $26,000 a year.
It says the findings suggest that between 40 and 50 million children may be growing up in poverty in some of the wealthiest countries.
Norway came in lowest, with child poverty rates, at just 3 per cent. At the other end of the spectrum was the United States, with a rate of child poverty estimated at more than 20 per cent.
Australia has 14.7 per cent children living in poverty, which has fallen 1.7 per cent in the past decade according to the report. Along with the US, Britain and Norway, only these four countries reported a drop.
Barnardos Australia works with families who are having difficulties rearing their children and children who are at risk of abuse, or who have been abused and neglected. It sees about 8,000 children and year and also has a foster care program which deals with around 1,000 children a year.
Chief executive and director of welfare Louise Voigt agrees the 1.7 per cent drop is significant and says that evidence suggests that child poverty is not increasing in Australia. However she believes the figure of 14.7 per cent is too high.
"As a major charity working with the effects of poverty on children we think it's far too high...because almost all our clients are children living in poverty," she said.
"I think it should be an embarrassment for Australia and I think for some people it is...but most people would try not to think about it" she said.

Homelessness
Ms Voigt says the main area of concern is homelessness amongst families. She says far too many clients Bardardos works with are unable to find affordable accommodation and the cost of this to children is significant.
"If you spend far too long sleeping on friends' floors then it is likely your relationship with your spouse will be poor and you will often be angry and distressed. You may well not be supervising your children well enough or caring for them because your capacity to do so is lowered by options you've got available to you." she said.
Ms Voigt believes its these sorts of factors that then contribute to a bleak future for children because their physical, mental and educational development is restricted.

Abuse and neglect
The Abused Child Trust works with around 500 children a year and says it sees a direct link between abuse and poverty in the families it works with.
Executive manager of programs, Fred Gravestock, says the children the trust works with are generally children whose families are reliant upon government social support and they have very few other sources of income.
He says research done by the trust suggests the abuse some deprived children suffer means as they grow up they are unable to contribute to society as they could or should.
"We know that children who are abused are more likely to end up having psychological and psychiatric problems, more likely to have school failure, to be involved in the criminal justice system, to be reliant on social services and more likely to be unemployed." he said.
In a report released 18 months ago the trust estimated the total cost of abuse and neglect in the community was around $5 billion.
"What is means is these people - apart from not contributing to society - they're also being a drain on financial resources within the community" Mr Gravestock said.

Commissioner for children
Mr Gravestock believes Australia needs to consolidate its approach to improving the lot of children in Australia.
He is calling for a federal commissioner for children to be established, for all children - not just those in care, as is the case in Queensland.
"At the moment we have lots of different interest groups across Australia - early childhood, young people, mental health - and I think a federal commissioner for children would be to united and provide a single voice for the needs and interests of children. Children are important to us both now and in the future - let's look and beginning to provide the support they need to be active contributors to our community."
The Department of Family and Community services says as some states and territories already have a children's commissioner in place it believes the creation of a federal commissioner would cause a duplication.
It says all state and territory ministers for youth meet at a conference and this provides a forum for issues their departments or commissioners have raised.

A department spokeswoman also says it is providing record funding to community programs and families and will continue its agenda to provide opportunity for all Australians.

http://www.fightpoverty.mmbrico.com/...australia.html

So let's hope the same people who do not want non-industrialized societies to progress and develope their infrastructure and economy, and also support the Punjabi-dominated state of Pakistan including holding on to Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh also do their bit to contribute to alleviating poverty in Australia, and also realize that "shiny developments" are needed there too, and an army is needed there too in addition to combating poverty.

[gadoonwal]

the bravest bingalis kicked out the dirty sold out british slaves/punjabis from their holy land in 1971 .
The bangladesh is one million time better then the punjabistan.
punjabistan is known for curroption and terrorism.
It is like a canser for the whole region.
The world will be a better place without pakistan.

[Shehbaz Khan]

^ And if we think as per media, what is Afghanistan known for !!

Aab-e-Hayat, leave it roriya.

[faye]

thanks bengal tiger. good of you to put that info about australia up for me :-) actually, i don't live that far above what is considered, the poverty level in australia but i am a practised master at frugality.

[gadoonwal]

^ And if we think as per media, what is Afghanistan known for !!

Aab-e-Hayat, leave it roriya.

the canser/pakistan is the real problem.
why you support the creation of kaafirs/pakistan?
do you think a kaafir can creat islamic country?

[Bengal_Tiger]

Gadoonwala wrora, please just forget this thread. It was started by the son of a senior Pakistani civil servant (diplomat) who financially benefits from the existence of the state of NA-PAKistan. This same person (Luffy the thief) has also boasted many times about his ISI connections.

He is an enemy of Pashtuns and an enemy of Muslims, just leave him and his MQM-walla friend, Shahbaz Singh.

He wants us to fight and argue, this is a traitor connected to the ISI. The best thing is to ignore this traitor and thief.

[tor_khan]

Staff Message:

Thread Closed.