Is Bangladesh heading towards disaster?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BBC:

One of the world's largest democracies in the Muslim world seems to be descending into chaos, with violence, strikes, transport blockades and business instability adding to an already strong sense of tension.

While Henry Kissinger was wrong to describe Bangladesh as a "basket case" in the mid-1970s - it has for the most part been more than capable of feeding itself since independence - there is nevertheless a strong feeling that the country may not escape an equally damaging epithet - that of a "failed state".

Bangladesh's latest problems stem from a not unexpected but decisive announcement by the Awami League - and around 18 smaller parties allied to it - that they will boycott general elections due later this month.

Fears are now growing that the future of the country and its 150 million population are now at stake.

Full Article Here

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just to add a note to that; the impact of any political troubles in Bangladesh will be felt in East London; a lot of the Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets Labour have links to the Awami League, while a lot of the Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets Respect have links to a fairly small Islamist ally of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bangladesh is already in trouble due to rising seas.

A common enough misconception (due to what the media tend to illustrate stories about rising seas with) . Bangla Desh is very flat, but its rising out of the ocean. It's regularly flooded by rivers, not the sea. The upside of which is that it's about the most fertile piece of property on the planet.

Geological rise is over the period of Millenia. Since we're melting the ice caps much faster than say 100,000 years...

I'm not talking about geological rise. The whole state is built on silt deposits, and there's A LOT of it coming down those rivers every year.

Presumably with each bad flood, Bangladesh rises up a little bit more.