Bangladesh Offers Tea, Jute to U.S.
DHAKA, Bangladesh — The government of Bangladesh, where hundreds of people die in floods every year, offered Tuesday to send tea and jute sacks for flood victims in the U.S. Midwest.
Foreign Minister Mustafizur Rahman conveyed his country’s offer of the assistance to the U.S. Embassy, state-run television reported. The amount of the relief has not been determined yet, it said.
Earlier, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia sent a message to President Clinton, expressing sympathy for the Americans affected by the Mississippi River flooding, the television said.
Monsoon floods, an annual calamity in this nation crisscrossed by rivers, have killed more than 230 people in the last month.
Tea and jute--a fiber for making burlap used in sacks such as those turned into sandbags along the Mississippi--are the main foreign exchange earners of Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest nations with an annual per capita income of $170.
The United States sent 7,500 military personnel to help Bangladesh in 1991 after a cyclone struck the country, killing 125,000 people.
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