Bangladesh week

Monday

Discussion with Alhaj Kamoruddin, International Secretary Bangladeshi BNP
Meeting with Tajammul Hussain.
Sylvia Ingmire, Dada Felja and Sylvester Huczko (Education Support Project Workers), to discuss current problems of the Roma

Tuesday

Visit to the Bangladesh High Commission to meet the Deputy High Commissioner for a discussion on the next steps they might take to combat pneumonia, the biggest world killer of young children. The High Commissioner has agreed to speak at the Meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Chidhood Pneumonia (of which Jim Dobbin MP and I are joint chairs) to mark World Pneumonia Day, a project initiated by the World Health Organisation for the first time a year ago.
Then back to Portcullis House for a meeting of the Group addressed by Professor Orin Levene the foremost world expert on pneumonia, and executive director of PneumoADIP (Pneumococcal vaccines Accelerated Development and Introduction Plan), a small, dedicated team based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by a $30 million grant from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. Its mission is to improve child survival and health by accelerating the evaluation of and access to new, lifesaving pneumococcal vaccines for the world's children. Even poor countries are taking on these programmes, which are a key step towards Millenium Development Goal 4, the reduction of under five infant mortality by two thirds by 2015.
In the evening, I played truant, and we went to a splendid ENO performace of Handel’s Radamisto. The plot is utterly absurd, though not too distant from the account of the same events in Tacitus for most of the way. Just before the end of the opera the villain Tiridate suddenly reforms for no apparent reason and Radamisto ascends the throne of Armenia, whereas in Tacitus, Radamisto is executed by his father Pharasmenes.

Wednesday I was interviewed by Sarah Shannon of The Oldie. Later, a visit by Justice Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik, together with his wife and daughter and one of his assistants. Then to a meeting of the All-Party Group on Tibet.

Thursday, a consultation with Mr R, who operated to give me a new aorta. Nothing special to report, and the fluctuations in my blood pressure will be dealt with by the cardiologist on November 24.
Lunch with Toby Cadman, an expert on war crimes, who has been in Bangladesh discussing the legislation. As it turned out, there would have been plenty of time to pass amending legislation before the trials begin, and its really a shame that the defects in the 1973 Act have taken on a political aspect.