Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
Editorial
Challenges in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o></o>
Ret Merut
Posted on 09 May 2007 by Root
http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.ph...=1178700250&archive=&start_from=&ucat=5&cat=5
As <st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> now experiences a heat wave, a diarrhoea outbreak occurs.
These regular outbreaks mainly affect children and are caused by eating rotten food and drinking polluted water; they escalate in summer when drinking water is in short supply, forcing people to use contaminated sources.<o></o>
Water supply is a growing crisis in <st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> (and many other places). The 1950s 'Green Revolution' funded by Western aid doubled the crop production of Asia, with the help of chemical fertilisers, but at the expense of using 3 times as much water; most of which came from tapping into groundwater sources via electric pumps (consequently this groundwater is now polluted by chemical fertilisers).
This is completely unsustainable, and in the long term causes the drying up of river beds and other environmental effects.
As farmers have become dependent on village pumps for crop irrigation, they are also dependent on the irregular electricity supply to deliver the water to the fields.
This is another ongoing source of conflict in <st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> between the state and the poor, with frequent attacks on electricity offices occurring.
<o></o>
<st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> may find itself increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place - either not enough water or too much.
Its geographical location makes it particularly vulnerable to flooding from rising sea levels due to global warming.
While the country struggles with providing sufficient water supplies, lower rainfalls caused by rising temperatures only add to the supply problems. This is one of the Catch 22s/contradictions for rapidly expanding Asian economies and others - their industrial growth encourages global warming that undermines the conditions for continued expansion. In <st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> the problems are only more immediate and acute.
<o></o>
Energy supply is a major problem for all classes in <st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region>. The electricity infrastructure is old and badly maintained, breaks down frequently and is inadequate to meet the demand. Power cuts are frequent; many areas are only supplied for a few hours a day.
Some areas have no power for days at a time when a local generator fails. For the ruling class, it impedes productivity, forcing shutdowns of workplaces when supply fails. For workers, it means loss of income due to these unpaid stoppages.
For the wider society, air conditioning stops and makes crowded urban areas even more unbearable in hot weather.
Lack of refrigeration encourages traders to regularly doctor food with dangerous cheap preservatives such as formaldehyde. Water supplies are also affected, as much of it is dependent on electric pumps extracting groundwater supplies, both for domestic use and for farm irrigation.
<o></o>
The lack of regular electricity has severely affected industrial output, particularly in the jute mills, the country's second largest industry after the garment sector. Loss-making mills, whose management partly blame lack of power supply for un-profitability, have withheld wages for months at a time.
This has sparked strikes and violent clashes.
<o></o>
<st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> has considerable coal deposits, but extraction has many pitfalls (pun intended).
Only recently (April 26th) a British mine ventilation expert was overcome by high temperature and humidity in Barapukuria coal mine at a depth of 450 metres and died. The geological and climatic conditions of the country make mining a difficult and dangerous task.
<o></o>
Other problems encountered are the risk of roof fall, methane gas explosion and subsidence affecting buildings, fields and roads on the surface, leading to compensation claims.
<o></o>
Open cast mines have their own problems; "during the monsoon season, torrential rain may cause large scale land slide related to pit slope instability. This, along with water logging problem would render coal mining almost impossible."
<o></o>
When the British company Asia Energy attempted to begin open cast mining last year at Phulbari, it provoked a local insurrection of those people the mining would have displaced. 5 people were killed by cops in clashes. 30,000 people then seized control of the town as security forces withdrew.
Asia Energy's offices were trashed and the government was forced to cancel the mining project. But it is now being reconsidered and there may be attempts to force its implementation during the present state of emergency brought in by the military-dominated caretaker government.
In the most densely populated predominantly agricultural country in the world, all land use is precious to the poor, adding to the difficulties of any mining proposals.
New proposals have included a suggestion of offshore gas extraction in the <st1lace>Bay of Bengal</st1lace> and the possibility of joint Bangladeshi/Indian/Nepalese exploration of hydro-electric potential of the Himalayan water system. There are vague ideas of developing nuclear power in the country, but problems of 'failing state' political instability and a related potential terrorist threat may make attracting private investment difficult.
<o></o>
Increased industrial profitability may be a motivation to put greater effort into resolving the energy crisis, but the larger political situation must first be resolved. The lack of adequate energy infrastructure severely affects both qualities of life for the poor and capital accumulation for the rich industrialists.
In contrast, government officials have found the energy question highly profitable. The inadequacies of energy supply are a direct result of the corruption and short term greed of all previous governments. Every energy project has had funding and progress dissipated by institutional corruption and pilfering of funds at every level of government and business.
<o></o>
The energy infrastructure crisis neatly illustrates one of the main aspects of the present political conflict in <st1:country-region><st1lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region>. The state bureaucrats' domination of politics and economic (dis)organisation is restricting the growth of the economy, becoming a 'fetter on the forces of production'; this growth is represented at present largely by the quickly expanding garment industry. The culture of kickbacks, bribes, unproductive retainers and parasitical officialdom must be confronted and overcome before the conditions for a stable modern industrial economy can be created.
<o></o>
The other main factor is that a young working class has been created by the fast industrial expansion. The present state of emergency has only achieved, at best, a short temporary drop in workers' combativity. Strikes and agitation are now growing once again. The ban on all political organising has actually encouraged the already strong organising autonomy of the Bangladeshi proletariat; unions are banned from functioning or meeting so cannot play their mediating role as sellers and negotiators of labour. At present, all strikes are officially wildcats.
Posted on 09 May 2007 by Root
Challenges in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o></o>Ret Merut
Posted on 09 May 2007 by Root
http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.ph...=1178700250&archive=&start_from=&ucat=5&cat=5
As <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> now experiences a heat wave, a diarrhoea outbreak occurs. These regular outbreaks mainly affect children and are caused by eating rotten food and drinking polluted water; they escalate in summer when drinking water is in short supply, forcing people to use contaminated sources.<o
></o>Water supply is a growing crisis in <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> (and many other places). The 1950s 'Green Revolution' funded by Western aid doubled the crop production of Asia, with the help of chemical fertilisers, but at the expense of using 3 times as much water; most of which came from tapping into groundwater sources via electric pumps (consequently this groundwater is now polluted by chemical fertilisers). This is completely unsustainable, and in the long term causes the drying up of river beds and other environmental effects.
As farmers have become dependent on village pumps for crop irrigation, they are also dependent on the irregular electricity supply to deliver the water to the fields.
This is another ongoing source of conflict in <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> between the state and the poor, with frequent attacks on electricity offices occurring. <o
></o> <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> may find itself increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place - either not enough water or too much. Its geographical location makes it particularly vulnerable to flooding from rising sea levels due to global warming.
While the country struggles with providing sufficient water supplies, lower rainfalls caused by rising temperatures only add to the supply problems. This is one of the Catch 22s/contradictions for rapidly expanding Asian economies and others - their industrial growth encourages global warming that undermines the conditions for continued expansion. In <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> the problems are only more immediate and acute. <o
></o> Energy supply is a major problem for all classes in <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region>. The electricity infrastructure is old and badly maintained, breaks down frequently and is inadequate to meet the demand. Power cuts are frequent; many areas are only supplied for a few hours a day. Some areas have no power for days at a time when a local generator fails. For the ruling class, it impedes productivity, forcing shutdowns of workplaces when supply fails. For workers, it means loss of income due to these unpaid stoppages.
For the wider society, air conditioning stops and makes crowded urban areas even more unbearable in hot weather.
Lack of refrigeration encourages traders to regularly doctor food with dangerous cheap preservatives such as formaldehyde. Water supplies are also affected, as much of it is dependent on electric pumps extracting groundwater supplies, both for domestic use and for farm irrigation.
<o
></o> The lack of regular electricity has severely affected industrial output, particularly in the jute mills, the country's second largest industry after the garment sector. Loss-making mills, whose management partly blame lack of power supply for un-profitability, have withheld wages for months at a time.
This has sparked strikes and violent clashes.
<o
></o> <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region> has considerable coal deposits, but extraction has many pitfalls (pun intended). Only recently (April 26th) a British mine ventilation expert was overcome by high temperature and humidity in Barapukuria coal mine at a depth of 450 metres and died. The geological and climatic conditions of the country make mining a difficult and dangerous task.
<o
></o> Other problems encountered are the risk of roof fall, methane gas explosion and subsidence affecting buildings, fields and roads on the surface, leading to compensation claims.
<o
></o> Open cast mines have their own problems; "during the monsoon season, torrential rain may cause large scale land slide related to pit slope instability. This, along with water logging problem would render coal mining almost impossible."
<o
></o> When the British company Asia Energy attempted to begin open cast mining last year at Phulbari, it provoked a local insurrection of those people the mining would have displaced. 5 people were killed by cops in clashes. 30,000 people then seized control of the town as security forces withdrew.
Asia Energy's offices were trashed and the government was forced to cancel the mining project. But it is now being reconsidered and there may be attempts to force its implementation during the present state of emergency brought in by the military-dominated caretaker government.
In the most densely populated predominantly agricultural country in the world, all land use is precious to the poor, adding to the difficulties of any mining proposals.
New proposals have included a suggestion of offshore gas extraction in the <st1
lace>Bay of Bengal</st1lace> and the possibility of joint Bangladeshi/Indian/Nepalese exploration of hydro-electric potential of the Himalayan water system. There are vague ideas of developing nuclear power in the country, but problems of 'failing state' political instability and a related potential terrorist threat may make attracting private investment difficult.<o
></o> Increased industrial profitability may be a motivation to put greater effort into resolving the energy crisis, but the larger political situation must first be resolved. The lack of adequate energy infrastructure severely affects both qualities of life for the poor and capital accumulation for the rich industrialists.
In contrast, government officials have found the energy question highly profitable. The inadequacies of energy supply are a direct result of the corruption and short term greed of all previous governments. Every energy project has had funding and progress dissipated by institutional corruption and pilfering of funds at every level of government and business.
<o
></o> The energy infrastructure crisis neatly illustrates one of the main aspects of the present political conflict in <st1:country-region><st1
lace>Bangladesh</st1lace></st1:country-region>. The state bureaucrats' domination of politics and economic (dis)organisation is restricting the growth of the economy, becoming a 'fetter on the forces of production'; this growth is represented at present largely by the quickly expanding garment industry. The culture of kickbacks, bribes, unproductive retainers and parasitical officialdom must be confronted and overcome before the conditions for a stable modern industrial economy can be created. <o
></o> The other main factor is that a young working class has been created by the fast industrial expansion. The present state of emergency has only achieved, at best, a short temporary drop in workers' combativity. Strikes and agitation are now growing once again. The ban on all political organising has actually encouraged the already strong organising autonomy of the Bangladeshi proletariat; unions are banned from functioning or meeting so cannot play their mediating role as sellers and negotiators of labour. At present, all strikes are officially wildcats.
Posted on 09 May 2007 by Root