Dhaka, Nov 29  – British MP George Galloway and a large delegation from Britain marched Sunday from Sylhet city to the Bangladesh border with India where the river Barak divides into the Shurma and Kushiara.

The British delegation along with a huge Bangladeshi crowd began the long-march towards the site of India’s proposed Tipaimukh Dam in the morning. Border guards stopped them from crossing the border.

The march is arranged to draw global attention to the devastating potential impact of the proposed dam on Sylhet and the entire north-eastern region of Bangladesh.

“The potential impact on both depriving Sylhet of Vital Water and threatening serious Flooding make this a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ aimed at the heart of Sylhet and the people of Bangladesh,” Galloway said.

Along with George Galloway MP, the delegates include MP candidate from Respect for the upcoming UK election, councillors Abjol Miah and M Mamunur Rashid, and 17 other British representatives.

Galloway has already met with the former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, former president and Jatiya Party chairman H M Ershad, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nijami and Sylhet mayor Badruddin Ahmed Kamran.

They will meet with the president Zillur Rahman and prime minister Sheikh Hasina this week.

The delegation will return to Dhaka on Dec 2, 2009 and will hold a press conference at Reporters Unity before their departure from Bangladesh.

Mir Ezaz Ali, secretary of Respect and campaign manager for Galloway MP, has been coordinating the event.

Dhaka, Nov 30 –Bangladesh will put strong arguments for duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) trade facilities by next year and will call for an immediate decision at WTO talks beginning Monday in Geneva.

Delegations of some 153 WTO members are joining the Seventh WTO Ministerial Conference 2009. Bangladesh, as chair of the 39-nation LDC Group, will lead the least developed countries in the talks.

Earlier, on Oct 14-18, commerce ministers of the 39-nation LDC Group met in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania where they adopted a declaration and work plan, aiming to unify the position of LDCs on world trade issues and give guidance to negotiators ahead of the Geneva meet.

The work plan instructed the senior officials of the LDC countries in Geneva to formulate appropriate language on DFQF and finalised LDCs’ position on Disproportionate Affected Countries (DAC).

“We discussed the LDCs’ possible role in the upcoming WTO Geneva talks,” commerce minister Faruq Khan told reporters on his return from the meeting.

He hoped that there would not be any disagreement in opinion among the LDC members from Asia and Africa at the Geneva conference.

Based on this work plan, senior LDC officials particularly Tanzania, zambia, Uganda and Bangladesh prepared language on these two important issues which was circulated before Sunday’s meeting.

The LDC commerce ministers met Sunday afternoon, prior to the conference, to review their progress since the Dar-es-Slam meet and future course of actions.

Lesotho as one of the textile exporting countries, however, expressed reservations about these two issues as it believes its textile export would be adversely affected.

After a long debate particularly with Bangladesh, Lesotho finally agreed the proposal that developed country members grant enhanced and commercially meaningful market access within the 97 percent of products’ coverage, defined at the tariff line level, by early 2010.

It covers products of export interest to individual LDC.

Following Lesotho’s refusal to accept DAC issue, Zambia proposed an alternative text on DAC, which everyone accepted.

As proposed by Zambia the outcome of Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) will ensure that the core principle of the special and differential treatment is made operational by granting all LDCs more preferential treatment than non-LDCs.

The present language on DFQF and DAC seem favourable to Bangladesh.

It, however, has to work further so that the LDC group decisions are adopted by all the WTO members, particularly by the USA.

Bangladesh in the WTO conference will also demand a decision so that no LDC pays higher duties than the non-LDC members.