Word: bangladesh
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Similar pollution closed beaches on the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the English Channel. Killer hurricanes ripped through the Caribbean and floods devastated Bangladesh, reminders of nature's raw power. In Soviet Armenia a monstrous earthquake killed some 55,000 people. That too was a natural disaster, but its high casualty count, owing largely to the construction of cheap high-rise apartment blocks over a well-known fault area, illustrated the carelessness that has become humanity's habit in dealing with nature...
...effect of special programs for women has been demonstrated in Bangladesh. In 1975 the government launched a project in which associations of rural village women were provided with start-up loans for launching small businesses, such as making pottery, raising poultry and running grocery stores. About 123,000 women are currently enrolled in the cooperative. At weekly meetings, health-care and contraceptive information are distributed among members. An extraordinary 75% of the co-op members of childbearing age use contraceptives, while nationwide only 35% of married women practice birth control...
Poorer countries have fewer options. Wracked by periodic floods, Bangladesh cannot simply evacuate the "chars" -- bars of sand and silt in the Ganges Delta -- where millions of people have set up camp. But the government has drawn up plans for a network of raised helipads and local flood shelters to facilitate the distribution of emergency aid if, as seems inevitable, disaster strikes again. Meanwhile, the country can only appeal to its Himalayan neighbors to do something about the root cause of the flooding: the deforestation of watersheds in India and Nepal that has turned seasonal monsoons into "unnatural disasters...
...brothers from Bangladesh--then students at Harvard and Stanford respectively--founded ODN on the two campuses in 1983, and there are currently 63 chapters on college campuses nationwide. Bike-Aid, which started in 1986 and absorbed Harvard Cyclists Fighting Hunger in 1987, is one of four major ODN programs which raise awareness about and help combat the problem of global poverty and injustice...
Already La Nina has been credited with a role in causing this summer's drought in the Midwest, the deluges that flooded Bangladesh in September and the severe hurricane season in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. While widespread attention has been paid to the greenhouse effect -- the trend toward global warming due to the increase of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere -- some scientists believe that this winter La Nina will bring on a dramatic, though probably temporary, drop in average global temperatures. Says meteorologist and oceanographer James O'Brien of Florida State University...