5:11 pm - Saturday March 27, 3520
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Art & Culture

Bangladesh’s teenage surf girls

They lead double lives. Born into poverty in the Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar, Johanara, Aisha, Shumi, Rifa, Suma, Shobe Majaraz, Mayasha and Nargis wake up early each morning to go to work hawking snacks and handcrafted jewelry on their local beach down in the southern reaches of the country, along the Bay of Bengal. They work late into the night, earning as much as they can to support their families. Shumi, 11, is the only one among this group of eight friends ranging from 10 to 13 who goes to school. She wishes to become a doctor when she grows up. But the odds are stacked against her in what, despite making significant strides in recent years to improve the position of its women [caption id="attachment_20388" align="alignleft" width="468"]

An Armenian island in Bangladesh

There have never been very large enclaves of Armenian residing in Asia or the Far East however the presence of pockets of Armenians in the region and their impact on the societies in which they lived have left their mark despite the dwindling of these communities over time. ArmeniaThe footprints of Armenians in Asia can be traced back to the seventeenth century and there is no greater symbol of the Armenian presence than the ArmenianApostolicChurch spotted in various locations in the region, still standin...