If you eat rice, and particularly - in a monstrous irony - the "healthy" brown variety, or the kind used in baby food, the answer is almost certainly yes. According to Andrew Meharg, professor of biogeochemistry at Aberdeen University and a world authority on one of the most notoriously poisonous elements known to man, 10% of rice found on British supermarket shelves and 30% of rice-based baby food contains levels of arsenic higher than would be allowed in China, which as the world's largest consumer of the staple has the strictest standards (Britain's were set in 1959).
The Guardian, London | Read

n unprecedented legal attempt began yesterday to hold British scientists responsible for what the World Health Organisation has called the "largest mass poisoning of a population in history". British lawyers for a group of 500 Bangladeshis want to sue for arsenic poisoning that the villagers received from drinking water. Potential damages of millions of pounds are at stake.
The villagers are seeking leave from the House of Lords to sue the Natural Environment Research Council and its agency, the British Geological Survey, claiming western agencies have a duty of care to people they are trying to help overseas. The Guardian | read

Venture beyond the steamy, compressed capital of Dhaka and you'll discover a land of ancient palaces and shining rice fields. Christian Walsh took to the road with his in-laws - who better to reveal their homeland's attractions. This is just like home at 10 times the cost," said my wife repeat- edly, as we drove through Bali's picturesque paddy terraces. "Next year we'll make a road trip across Bangladesh. You'll see, it's just as beautiful as Bali!" Independent, London | read

Bangladesh has experienced its shortest winter in a decade, meteorologists said, adding the unusually short season may be due to global warning. Winter in tropical Bangladesh normally starts on December 1 and lasts until February 28. But “the winter was over by fifth of February,” Taslima Imam, a meteorologist at the country’s Meteorological Department, told AFP Saturday.
New Nation, Dhaka | read

Mukta lives in an area of Dhaka called Bari Badh and her family's house looks over the great river Buri Ganga. Behind it are fancy blocks of new flats, and a busy main road has been built on a high embankment to stop them and the city being flooded. In front of Mukta's house stretches a 10-acre lagoon where men bathe and kids fish with bamboo rods. But do not imagine that Bari Badh is a Bangladeshi urban idyll, even though it has a peculiar beauty.
The Guardian London | Read

The Sundarbans are in serious trouble, reports John Vidal in Bangladesh

The guardhouse to the Sundarbans world heritage park in southern Bangladesh sits on one of the many banks of water that flow through the world's largest single block of mangrove forest. Four rotting boats and piles of valuable sundari trees - confiscated from gangs of illegal loggers - are beached beside
The Guardian, London | Read

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh - Hundreds of ships visiting Bangladesh's main port are taking advantage of lax laws and poor enforcement to dump pollutants into the sea, shipping and environmental officials said yesterday.
Planet Ark | Read

Arguments over the causes of global warming will bring little succour to the people of Bangladesh. Flooding in the country is set to increase by up to 40 per cent this century as global temperatures rise, the latest climate models suggest.
The New Scientist | Read