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From Our Own Correspondent: No sign of it stopping:  the spread of Covid in Bangladesh

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No sign of it stopping:  the spread of Covid in Bangladesh

17/07/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, No sign of it stopping:  the spread of Covid in Bangladesh

With only a fraction of the population vaccinated, Covid is spreading across Bangladesh

A correspondent in Dhaka describes scenes of desperation, as people fall victim to Covid, with vaccination barely started. What is achieved, he asks, by the attempt at lockdown?

Stories from Bangladesh, Eswatini, Russia and the US

When it comes to Covid, Bangladesh has had far less attention than its giant neighbour, India. And yet the situation in Bangladesh is critical; in this desperately poor country, a healthcare system which was struggling anyway has now been overwhelmed. Our correspondent, Akbar Hossein has witnessed people dying in the streets, and seen a cancer sufferer turned away from a hospital no longer able to offer treatment He also questions whether the government lockdown is working, or indeed, was ever expected to.

There was a time when kings ruled over much of Africa, as they did in other parts of the world. Now, there is only one African nation where a king holds sway: tiny Eswatini, sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique. Formerly known as Swaziland, Eswatini is ruled over by King Mswati, a man with many wives, and many Rolls Royce cars to drive them around. Now, protests have broken out, with some telling our reporter Shingai Nyoka that they are no longer willing to accept such disparities in wealth.

How much would people care about a military hero born eight hundred years ago? Quite a lot if the country is Russia, and the hero is Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky is credited with repelling a whole string of foreign invaders, but it’s his role today that piqued the interest of our correspondent, Francis Scarr. As he watched a ceremony to honour Nevsky’s remains in a provincial Russian town, he reflected on why Vladimir Putin seems determined to remind Russians about Nevsky’s bravery, and his success in keeping foreigners at bay.

When she told people she had been living in a cave, most thought the writer Stephanie Theobald was speaking metaphorically. In fact, she has spent the past year as a troglodyte, in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, acquainting herself with lizards, coyotes and a very different way of life.

(Image: Garment workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where factories are allowed to remain open, despite a countrywide lockdown. Credit: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain)

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