In its Smokescreens in the Supply Chain report, the Swedish NGO blamed British American Tobacco (BAT), the world’s third largest tobacco company, for “expanding cultivation into new countries without adequately addressing human rights challenges”. Swedwatch said it had identified widespread child labour issues and severe health issues in BAT’s Bangladeshi supply chain. Frida Arounsavath, a researcher at Swedwatch, told EurActiv.com that the workers producing tobacco for BAT Bangladesh (BATB) were farmers, their wives and children, and also hired agriculture labourers, as well as their family members. “Children and adults alike report health problems from exposure to pesticides, absorption of nicotine through the skin when handling the leaves (the acute poisoning is called Green...

International Crisis Group has called the 1 July Dhaka attack the most visible manifestation yet of the threat that a new generation of self-styled jihadis poses to Bangladesh that boasts of its pluralistic society. Referring to premier Sheikh Hasina’s resolve ‘to bring all terrorists to justice’, the Brussels-based group questioned if this was “finally a wake-up call for a government that has too often underplayed the radical Islamist threat”. In an article titled “Bangladeshi Leaders Must Stop Politicising Counterterrorism” published in Nikkei Asian Review on 6 July, ICG’s Shehryar Fazli wrote that the Islamic State group was