The Bangladesh Journal - Yunus to meet Venezuelan president Chavez

UNB: Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus is leaving Dhaka today for Venezuela where he will have a meeting with president Hugo Chavez, the most acclaimed populist leader in the present world’s political scene.

Chavez, who made a highly dramatic comeback riding on the wave of an uprising hour after he was toppled in a military coup, has invited the founder of Grameen Bank to visit Venezuela for celebrating the Nobel peace prize 2006 that the Bangladeshi economist and his trailblasing micro-finance institution won.

During his visit to the oil-rich Latin American country, Yunus will also address an international conference being organised in Caracas by BANESCO, the largest commercial bank in Venezuela, said an announcement on Saturday.

His first stop on the long trek through Europe and the two Americas will be Germany. The micro-credit pioneer is scheduled to deliver a keynote at the opening of German Savings Bank Convention in Bochum.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prof Hans-Gerd Pöttering, president of the European Parliament, will also speak at the opening of the convention.

‘He will also attend a number of meetings in Germany and Switzerland on micro-credit, social business and development,’ says the tour-programme announcement.

Yunus will travel to Nashville, Tennessee, at the invitation of his alma mater Vanderbilt University, which will celebrate his Nobel peace prize and where he will receive the Chancellor-Nichols Award, the highest prize presented by the US university.

He will be given a reception by the Bangladeshi community in Nashville.

Yunus will make his foray into Washington, DC, where he has been invited by US Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to testify at the Senate Hearing on duty-free access of Bangladeshi textile products to the USA.

He will make a presentation arguing Bangladesh’s longstanding case at the hearing.

He will travel to Berlin to attend the World Bank Forum organised by the German government. He has been personally invited by German chancellor Angela Merkel to visit Berlin to hold discussions on the future of Africa, particularly the role of micro-finance, in the context of forthcoming meetings of the G8 countries in June.

Yunus, who is presently hot in discussion following his surprise announcement abandoning his plan for floating a political party, is due to return to Dhaka on May 24.