The United States (US) will continue its assistance to Bangladesh for addressing the climate change issue in the country.

This renewed pledge came when a delegation led by US Ambassador to Bangladesh James F Moriarty met with the State Minister for Environment and Forest Dr Hasan Mahmud at his office yesterday.

A recent study found 16.5 percent of school children in Dhaka city are affected with asthma while 25.8 percent school students have clinical symptoms of asthma.

National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM) and Department of Environment jointly conducted the study under a joint initiative of United Nations Environment Programme in three selected schools in Dhaka city.

The fish production in the greater Rajshahi district (Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and Natore) may fall by 50 percents compared with last year's record due to untimely and scanty rainfall, and absence of sufficient water in the water bodies viz. rivers, tributaries, flood plains, beels and ponds. As a result, thousands of fishermen have been cast in distress.

Tipaimukh hydraulic dam (THD) to be constructed by our giant neighbor India in the upstream at a distance of 200km (direct distance 100 km) from Amalshid border of Jakigang of Sylhet district of Bangladesh followed by Fulertal Barrage in 100 km downstream of Tipaimukh dam and 100 upstream of Bangladesh border to divert the water to Indian Province Assam is a stern threat to the existence of Bangla

Population density intensifies in every country around the world. Recent statistics shows (World total population Wikipedia) the total population in the world is around 6.78 billion people whereas in 100 years before the overall population was approximately 2.0 billion. 100 years ago most of the countries were dependent on agriculture.

The ongoing global climate change (CC) has already caused a grave concern to the country's agriculture, irrigation, navigation, ecology, bio-diversity, weather, environment and underground water levels, concerned experts said.

Fifteen commercially important verities of fish have so far disappeared over a decade from the Sitakunda sea belt in Chittagong because of massive seawater contamination by unsafe ship-breaking, according to a study.

The compensation of the affected villagers of Barapukuria coal mine areas will be permanently settled as per declaration of the government after a lapse of couple of years, state-owned Petrobangla sources said.

"We will need at least two years to complete necessary formalities to compensate the villagers of the coal mining areas," a director level official of the Petrobangla said.

Two loans and one technical assistance totalling over US$130 million of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are expected to improve the public and health services in urban areas of the country.

The government is going to set up a number of small capacity power generation plants across the country to meet the nagging power shortage which is hampering the development and overall economic activities.