Two organisations which have helped thousands of the neediest people in Bangladesh are celebrating important milestones.

Both were set up by British women, who have dedicated their lives to helping this nation which, beset by poverty, natural disasters and corruption, is one of the poorest in the world.

The Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) was founded 30 years ago by Valerie Taylor, a physiotherapist.

Sreepur Village, a shelter for abandoned women and children, established by a former British Airways stewardess Pat Kerr, has just celebrated its 20th birthday.

In the beginning of course, neither woman had any idea that they would be so successful, nor that they would still be here after so many years.

A fellow member of Dhaka’s tiny (and dwindling) band of foreign reporters, Misha Hussain, has written this interesting blog for the Pakistani newspaper/website Dawn. It tackles the highly sensitive  issue of war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s independence war by Pakistani forces/pro-Pakistan militia. This week of course has seen the 38th anniversary of Bangladesh’s birth, and renewed calls here for war crime trials. Take a look at the comments. I’ve encountered similar denials when I’ve discussed the war with Pakistanis.

But it is true that atrocities were committed by the freedom fighters against Urdu speakers. I have seen no suggestion anywhere that these too should be investigated and punished by the tribunal the government hopes to set up next year (after the likely execution of Mujib’s killers). This would certainly be highly controversial, (and unpopular with the governing Awami League’s supporters, who presumably include some of these people) but it would surely give the process extra credibility and weaken the argument of those who will, no doubt, accuse the trials of being an overtly political sham.

One of the men who has led the campaign for war crime trials told me that any atrocity (i.e. the rape and killing of civilians who were opposed to the break up of Pakistan) allegedly committed by the freedom fighters should not be equated to the crimes committed by the Pakistan army and its allies. This amounted to genocide, he argued, so should be tried separately. Any war crimes committed by the freedom fighters, he said, only came as a reaction to the unprovoked onslaught of the Pakistani forces; an onslaught, which in many instances, was actually aided by some of the Urdu speakers, and left between one and three million dead.

In other words one crime was much bigger, and was planned, the second was tiny by comparison, unplanned and in fact actually only occurred because of the first.

But other tribunals have made the uncomfortable decision to try people from all sides of a conflict. I can think of Sierra Leone in particular, where men hailed by many as heroes for helping defeat the murderous RUF rebels were themselves convicted of war crimes. It won’t happen here for some good, but also maybe for some bad reasons as well.

And here is a link to Misha’s own blog, Bangladesh Unplugged

I took this picture under the arches of a bridge, just across the river from old Dhaka.

It is a seedy place where the men seemed on drugs and the children did all the hard work.

You can see a gallery on the BBC website.

It is a jute rope factory where the boys (and one girl) run lengths of twine between pegs where they are twisted into rope. The children wear plastic bags to prevent rope burns.

The owner knows it is illegal to employ children, but said he was doing them, and their families, local slum dwellers who have recently arrived from the countryside, a favour.

Their families might need the cash, but nobody is doing anyone any favours here.

The children are being denied an education, and only the reason why they are doing this work in the first place is that no self-respecting adult would agree to do it for long.  Employing twenty children is cheaper than mechanizing the operation.

The owner is no fool – a graduate of Dhaka University, he said he hoped to move to London to work as an accountant.

It is four months since I first travelled to Char Atra, a low-lying sand island of thatched huts, paddy fields and banana trees, in the middle of the Ganges.

It is in southern Bangladesh, one of the regions of the world considered most vulnerable to climate change.

I found that the people living there have a stark choice in front of them.

Read the rest on the BBC

(I confess that this story has been up on the BBC site for a few days. It prompted a Bangladeshi photographer to get in touch with me. Shah Sazzad sent a link to his own website, where he has some great shots and stories from an equally wet part of Bangladesh.)

The state of the buses never ceases to amaze me.

But then I saw the boat that the buses go on…

My TV piece on climate change and food security (when we accidently filmed the shushuk)  has now been broadcast. All I can say is that, unlike any of the World’s other major disasters, climate change is a very hard thing to get on camera.

I’ve been tied up for the past few days editing (and re-editing) a TV feature on climate change, after filming again on the river island in the Ganges that I visited a few months ago. The idea then was to see how the islanders were preparing for the terrible floods which come each year (and which will probably be made worse by global warming.) The plan was to return later and see how the same villagers (a pregnant woman, a teacher, a farmer etc) were handling life when the water around them was waist high, and the best way to get to school is on a raft made from banana trees.

Well, as luck would have it, it did not rain so much this year (especially not upstream in north India), so the floods did not arrive. I returned expecting to find people relieved and happy. But instead they complained that the level of the river was so low that the fish stocks had been affected, so they were suffering anyway.  It sure is a tough place to live.

Anyway, in the edit I noticed that we had filmed, by chance, a Shushuk – a Ganges river dolphin. They’re amazing creatures; about the size of a pig, pink-ish, with a long snout and completely blind. They use sonar, and they love to circle in the eddies where two or more channels meet. Not that you would guess this from what we were able to film.

This one was playing close to the shore by a fish market, where we had set up to film the fishing boats arrive after a night on the water.

Hope you can spot it!

The good news is that scientists have recently discovered that Bangladesh is home to a huge number and variety of dolphins.  But my friends say that shushuk sightings used to be much more frequent in rivers throughout Bangladesh. They must be suffering too this year from the low water levels.

The people of Dhaka are as worried as anyone about the possibly dreadful impact of Swine Flu. In fact, as residents of a hugely overcrowded and unhygienic city, with poor medical facilities, they have more reason to worry than most.

The first three deaths have just occurred, and face masks are now being sold on the street corners.

But not a lot else has changed – for example it is still perfectly normal to ignore the onrushing cars and dodge through the traffic. What’s dangerous about that?

It pays not to believe everything you read…

The New Nation, “Bangladesh’s Independent News Source”, is running this story, which presumably one its editors found on the web and decided to copy and paste. 

Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Armstrong Moon landing was faked

Onion News Network, Lebanon, Ohio

Apollo 11 mission commander and famed astronaut Neil Armstrong shocked reporters at a press conference Monday, announcing he had been convinced that his historic first step on the moon was part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the United States government.

According to Armstrong, he was forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos, and reading several blog posts on conspiracy theorist Ralph Coleman’s website, OmissionControl.org.  

It is six months since a sudden and extremely violent revolt broke out at a military camp in the centre of Dhaka. I have been talking to some of the people who experienced it close up for a BBC World Service programme called Assignment.

And this is a shorter version that I wrote for the BBC website.