DHAKA: Bangladesh has shut down 18 garment plants in an attempt to prevent a repeat of last month’s factory collapse outside Dhaka, where the death toll passed 800 Wednesday, with rescuers pulling dozens more bodies from the rubble.
The announcement of the closures came days after Bangladesh agreed with the International Labour Organization to give safety “the highest consideration” amid government fears that Western garment firms might start sourcing goods from other countries.
“Sixteen factories have been closed down in Dhaka and two in Chittagong,” textile minister Abdul Latif Siddique told reporters in the capital, adding that more plants would be shut as part of strict new measures to ensure safety.
“We’ll ensure ILO standards in terms of compliance,” said Siddique, who heads a newly created high-powered panel to inspect the impoverished country’s 4,500 garment factories in an effort to avoid fresh disasters.
“We have seen that those who claim to be the best compliant factories in Bangladesh have not fully abided by building regulations.”
The death toll from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster hit 803 Wednesday.
Brig. Gen. Siddiqul Alam Sikder told AFP the stench of bodies trapped in the lower floors and under beams indicated the toll would rise as cranes and bulldozers kept clearing debris.
“We’re expecting to find some bodies because we still haven’t reached the bottom. We’ve finished around 70 percent of the job,” Sikder said.
Workers drawn from the army and fire service wore masks to ward off the smell as they continued to pull bodies from the rubble of the nine-story building in the town of Savar, a suburb of Dhaka.
More than 3,000 garment workers were on shift on April 24 when the nine-story Rana Plaza complex crumbled as they were turning out clothing for Western retailers such as Britain’s Primark and the Spanish label Mango.
A total of 2,437 people were earlier rescued from the ruins, authorities say.
Efforts to identify bodies were being hampered by their decomposition, officials said, adding that relief workers were taking DNA samples from the victims to match with relatives.
Many bodies were found in the staircases. Panicked workers had raced to stairwells in a rush to get out of the building after hearing a loud noise but the compound collapsed within five minutes, trapping them, officials said.
The disaster was the latest in a string of deadly accidents to hit the nation’s textile industry. Just last November, a factory fire killed 111 garment workers.
The government at the weekend in a joint statement with the ILO and factory owners promised to submit to the next parliamentary session a labor law reform package that would allow “the right to collective bargaining” and provide for “occupational safety and health.”
A preliminary government investigation blamed the collapse on the vibrations of giant electricity generators and police have arrested 12 people including the complex’s owner and four garment factory owners in connection with the disaster.
Impoverished Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment exporter and the industry accounts for over 40 percent of its industrial workforce and 80 percent of the nation’s exports.
Bangladesh shuts 18 garment factories after disaster; toll hits 800
Bangladesh shuts 18 garment factories after disaster; toll hits 800
Starmer arrives in China to defend ‘pragmatic’ partnership
- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, hoping to restore long fraught relations
BEIJING: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, hoping to restore long fraught relations.
It is the first visit to China by a UK prime minister since 2018 and follows a string of Western leaders courting Beijing in recent weeks, pivoting from a mercurial United States.
Starmer, who is also expected to visit Shanghai on Friday, will later make a brief stop in Japan to meet with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
For Xi, the trip is an opportunity to show Beijing can be a reliable partner at a time when President Donald Trump’s policies have rattled historic ties between Washington and its Western allies.
Starmer is battling record low popularity polls and hopes the visit can boost Britain’s beleaguered economy.
The trip has been lauded by Downing Street as a chance to boost trade and investment ties while raising thorny issues such as national security and human rights.
Starmer will meet with Xi for lunch on Thursday, followed by a meeting with Premier Li Qiang.
The British leader said on Wednesday this visit to China was “going to be a really important trip for us,” vowing to make “some real progress.”
There are “opportunities” to deepen bilateral relations, Starmer told reporters traveling with him on the plane to China.
“It doesn’t make sense to stick our head in the ground and bury in the sand when it comes to China, it’s in our interests to engage and not compromise on national security,” he added.
China, for its part, “is willing to take this visit as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun reiterated Wednesday during a news briefing.
Starmer is the latest Western leader to be hosted by Beijing in recent months, following visits by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Faced with Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Canada for signing a trade agreement with China, and the US president’s attempts to create a new international institution with his “Board of Peace,” Beijing has been affirming its support for the United Nations to visiting leaders.
Reset ties
UK-China relations plummeted in 2020 after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong, which severely curtailed freedoms in the former British colony.
They soured further since with both powers exchanging accusations of spying.
Starmer, however, was quick to deny fresh claims of Chinese spying after the Telegraph newspaper reported Monday that China had hacked the mobile phones of senior officials in Downing Street for several years.
“There’s no evidence of that. We’ve got robust schemes, security measures in place as you’d expect,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
Since taking the helm in 2024, Starmer has been at pains to reset ties with the world’s second-largest economy and Britain’s third-biggest trade partner.
In China, he will be accompanied by around 60 business leaders from the finance, pharmaceutical, automobile and other sectors, and cultural representatives as he tries to balance attracting vital investment and appearing firm on national security concerns.
The Labour leader also spoke to Xi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil in November 2024.
Jimmy Lai
The prime minister is also expected to raise the case of Hong Kong media mogul and democracy supporter Jimmy Lai, 78, a British national facing years in prison after being found guilty of collusion charges in December.
When asked by reporters about his plans to discuss Lai’s case, Starmer avoided specifics, but said engaging with Beijing was to ensure that “issues where we disagree can be discussed.”
“You know my practice, which is to raise issues that need to be raised,” added Starmer, who has been accused by the Conservative opposition of being too soft in his approach to Beijing.
Reporters Without Borders urged Starmer in a letter to secure Lai’s release during his visit.
The British government has also faced fierce domestic opposition after it approved this month contentious plans for a new Chinese mega-embassy in London, which critics say could be used to spy on and harass dissidents.
At the end of last year, Starmer acknowledged that China posed a “national security threat” to the UK, drawing flak from Chinese officials.
The countries also disagree on key issues including China’s close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the war in Ukraine, and accusations of human rights abuses in China.
