Bangladesh Flight

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES:   Visitors are advised to carry cash or travelers checks, since credit cards are not widely accepted in Bhutan. Druk Air, the only carrier servicing Bhutan, has rigid restrictions on the amount and size of luggage passengers may carry into the country. Passengers are advised to book bulky items ahead as unaccompanied baggage, since the aircraft servicing Bhutan have limited space available for large bags, and airline employees may not load large pieces of luggage. Flights into and out of Paro Airport are restricted to daylight hours and are dependent on suitable weather conditions. Flights are sometimes delayed or cancelled. Passengers are advised to allow at least 24 hours transit time for connecting flights from Paro Airport and to travel on non-restricted air tickets so that th ... [Read More]

Daily Press Briefing for December 2 - Transcript

QUESTION: Thank you. Israel airport officials made a divert airline for the Ethiopian Airlines to land on the air force base last Sunday because of concern of lack of security in the capital city of Ethiopia. And I know there's airlines flight from east African capital city of Ethiopia direct flight to United States. Do you have any same concern on it? ...

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, they had a technical -- what was it called? A mechanical difficulty prevented them from going to Brussels first, so they had to hop a different flight to get to London. I don't have a firm decision on that. There's a good chance that Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, will stop at NATO for consultations on Wednesdays. You have to check with the Defense Department to see if they've pinned that one down yet, but obviously we do want to talk to our NATO allies, along with others. ... [Read More]

Working for Women, Worldwide: The U.S. Commitment

Gender-based violence is of particular concern when dealing with refugees and displaced persons, since the majority are women and children. They are exposed to violence at every stage of their flight, and they are at risk even after they become refugees. They face horrific dangers: sexual violence in the form of rape and exploitation, as well as after-effects — HIV/AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other afflictions — that may not appear for months or even years. ... [Read More]

India (11/04)

In December 1971, following a political crisis in what was then East Pakistan and the flight of millions of Bengali refugees to India, Pakistan and India again went to war. The brief conflict left the situation largely unchanged in the west, where the two armies reached an impasse, but a decisive Indian victory in the east resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. ... [Read More]

E. Anthony Wayne, "The MCA Promotes Sound Economic Policies," Economic Perspectives, March 2003

We know that aid alone cannot lead to sustainable economic growth. Most of the developing world already possesses substantial assets that could be mobilized to promote their economic development. For a country to build on its wealth, however, that wealth must stay at home. For this to happen, countries must attract capital and put in place economic incentives to discourage capital flight. Estimates of sub-Saharan African country external assets, for example, exceed the stock of their external debt - a sure indication of capital flight. The MCA will promote a sound investment climate that can help pull some of this capital back into Africa. ... [Read More]

International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports

US DEPARTMENT OF STATEBUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS MATTERSINTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRAGEGY REPORTAPRIL 1994SOUTHWEST ASIA 219 Afghanistan 221 Bangladesh 226 India 229 Iran 235 Nepal 237 Pakistan 241 Sri Lanka 9 AFGHANISTANI. SummaryAfghanistan is the world's second largest producer of opium after Burma. According to USG estimates, cultivated opium poppy acreage in Afghanistan in 1993 increased by 8.3 percent, to 21,080 hectares, with a potential yield of 685 metric tons of opium. If all of this opium were refined, it would yield about 68.5 metric tons of heroin. Up to 20 percent of the heroin consumed in the US now appears to come from Southwest Asia, particularly Afghanistan and Pak ... [Read More]

US Department Of State Post Report

Bus, train, or plane services provide public transportation between cities. Domestic flights are subsidized and reasonable but still cost three times first-class train fares. Bangladesh Biman, the national carrier, links Dhaka to major cities in all divisions, but flying directly between divisions is not possible. Domestic flights are usually reliable, except when airports are closed for general strikes (locally known as “hartals”), visits of the President or foreign heads of state, or weather disturbances. Another private domestic airline that is used frequently is GMG. GMG flights normally run on schedule, and many travelers prefer their services to those of Biman. ... [Read More]

Southwest Asia

Law Enforcement Efforts. Law enforcement units engaged in counternarcotics operations include the police, the DNC, the border defense forces known as the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), customs, the navy, the coast guard, and local magistrates. Elements of the BDR, responsible for land border security within a twelve-mile swath inside the country, are widely believed to abet the smuggling of goods, including narcotics, into Bangladesh. Regular police and the BDR are viewed as so corrupt and inept at combating everyday crime that a new "Rapid Action Battalion" (RAB) force was recently set up by the central government. Customs, the navy, the coast guard and the DNC all suffer from under-funding, under-equipping, understaffing and lack of training. Customs officials also lack arrest authority. At ports of entry where customs officials are not stationed with police units, they have no capacity to detain suspected traffickers. Instead, they can only retain the ... [Read More]