Bangladesh
Countries where you can see tigers in the wild | Atlas & Boots
From the Russian taiga to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, we profile the places and countries where you can see tigers in the wild A century ago, as many as 100,000 wild tigers stalked the planet but by the dawn of the 21st century, that figure had plummeted by around 95% largely due to habitat loss and The post Countries where you can see tigers in the wild appeared first on Atlas & Boots.
WTO chief: Patent waiver not enough to close vaccine gap
World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that intellectual property waiver alone will not be enough to narrow the huge COVID-19 vaccine supply gap between rich and poor countries. She told the European Parliament that it was clear that discussions around vaccine patents alone would not suffice, saying that global leaders should do more to ensure that there is equitable production and distribution of the jabs. Okonjo-Iweala said developing countries had complained that the licensing process was cumbersome and should be improved upon. She added that while it makes sense to protect research and innovation, it is also important to expand access to the vaccines. According to her, manufacturers should work to expand production, pointing to idle capacity ...
All Chinese schools now have access to internet
Andrew Brookes/Getty Images All Chinese schools now have full access to the Internet, and 95.2 per cent of them are equipped with multi-media classrooms, according to a senior official with China’s Ministry of Education. The country has been constantly accelerating informationisation of teaching, and sees it as underpinning the modernisation of education, said Zhong Denghua, vice minister of the education ministry, at a virtual conference attended by ministers of education on the E9 Digital Learning Initiative jointly held by UNESCO and Bangladesh on April 6. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, online courses thrived across the country as a way to ensure normal teaching activities, said Zhong, adding that nearly 300 million teachers and students had learnt or taught online whi...
Reports: Governments ‘gender blind’ to coronavirus’ ‘greater impact’ on women
Governments are putting women and girls at greater risk of the health and socio-economic impacts posed by the coronavirus pandemic, two global studies released Wednesday show. They called on leaders to prioritise gender equity in their response to the health crisis. Two studies, one from a global research partnership led by the Global Health 50/50 Project in London and another by the Center for Global Development (CGD) in Washington, were released Wednesday to coincide with World Health Day that highlight major failings by national governments to consider sex or gender in their COVID-19 policies. Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, several studies have pointed to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women. Many women have shouldered a heftier burden taking on more unpa...
More than 90 killed in Myanmar in one of bloodiest days of protests
Security forces killed more than 90 people across Myanmar on Saturday in one of the bloodiest days of protests since a military coup last month, news reports and witnesses said. The lethal crackdown came on Armed Forces Day. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade in the capital Naypyitaw to mark the event that the military would protect the people and strive for democracy. State television had said on Friday that protesters risked being shot “in the head and back”. Despite this, demonstrators against the Feb. 1 coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns. The Myanmar Now news portal said 91 people were killed across the country by security forces. A boy reported by local media to be as young as five was among at least 29 people killed in...
Lobbyist says Myanmar junta wants to improve relations with the West, spurn China
An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist hired by Myanmar’s junta said on Saturday that the generals are keen to leave politics after their coup and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence official who has previously represented Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s military rulers, said Myanmar’s generals also want to repatriate Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The United Nations says more than 50 demonstrators have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won polls in November by a landslide. On Friday, a U.N. special envoy urged the Security Council to take action against t...
European Union backs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for WTO role
The European Union has endorsed former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Bloomberg reported. The business news outlet cited anonymous officials familiar with the matter that all the 27 EU member countries agreed on Monday in Brussels to support Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala. Bloomberg also reported that the United States has decided to back Yoo Myung-hee, South Korea’s trade minister, for the role. The position has been fiercely contested amongst candidates of different countries since Roberto Azevedo resigned in August. Last month, Okonjo-Iweala and Myung-hee were selected as the last two candidates in the contest. The EU’s endorsement is seen as a significant boost for Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy, with the final winner expected...
Governor Bagudu: President Buhari’s policies yielding fruitful results
Gov. Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi State says President Muhammadu Buhari’s policies have began to yield the desired results in the country. The governor made this known during a visit to a private rice mill, owned by a business mogul, Alhaji Sahabi Lolo in Kamba, Dandi Local Government Area (LGA) of the state on Sunday. Newsmen report that Bagudu was accompanied by Gov. Muhammed Badaru of Jigawa on the visit. He expressed delight that the policies of the administration were putting the country on a more formidable economic footing. According to Bagudu, the investment derive of the president in the rice value chain in the last few years is also bearing fruits on the economy. ”What you saw here today is one of the so many that have come-up in the last few years under president Muhammad Buhari’s r...
Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reach Indonesia ‘after seven months at sea’
Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reached Indonesia early Monday claiming to have been at sea for seven months, United Nations officials said, in one of the biggest landings by the persecuted Myanmar minority in years. The migrants — including more than a dozen children — were spotted at sea on a wooden boat by locals who helped them land near Lhokseumawe city on Sumatra’s northern coast, officials said. “From their testimonies, they said that they were seven months adrift,” said UN refugee agency coordinator Oktina, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “We have seen their condition is very weak at the moment,” she added. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project — an NGO that focuses on the Rohingya crisis — said the migrants may have been held at sea while traffickers extorted money f...
12 killed in Bangladesh gas explosion
A suspected gas explosion tore through a Bangladesh mosque killing at least 12 people while dozens suffered life-threatening burns, police said Saturday. Worshippers were at Friday evening prayers when the blast sent a ball of flames through the mosque in the central district of Narayanganj, emergency services said. Investigators suspected a spark from an air conditioner — which came on after a power cut — set off the gas. “Leaked gas entered the mosque,” Narayanganj fire chief Abdullah Al Arefin told AFP. “When they shut the windows and doors and switched on the air conditioners there was an electricity spark that led to the explosion inside the mosque.” The 12 who died were among 37 taken to a specialist burns hospital in Dhaka in critical condition, said hospital spokesman Samanta Lal S...
International borders: 10 remarkable frontiers
From mountains to libraries, we take a look at some of the most extraordinary international borders to be found across the globe Over the last few years, we’ve seen an impressive collection of new websites, blogs and social media accounts dedicated to ‘travel porn’. They’re filled with big, sweeping images of fairytale lands and precarious precipices. Sometimes, like this incredible piece on architectural density in Hong Kong, they’ll depict urban decay or stifling poverty – always gilded by the photographer’s lens. At Atlas & Boots, we always wanted to strike the right balance between travel porn and more in-depth content; the type that provided some previously unknown knowledge or insight. We’re using the current downtime to update some old content and came across this post about unu...
