DHAKA: Bangladeshi police Wednesday used water cannon to disperse 10,000 striking garment workers who were blocking a major highway in a fourth day of industrial action, an official said.
Authorities meanwhile confirmed that one worker was killed and 50 others injured on Tuesday after police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at some 5,000 workers protesting in Dhaka and on the outskirts of the capital.
Bangladesh’s 4,500 textile and clothing factories exported more than $30 billion worth of apparel last year, making clothing for retailers such as H&M, Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour and Aldi.
Police said some 10,000 workers blocked the highway at several places outside the industrial town of Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, for hours after some 50,000 workers walked out of their factories in the morning demanding higher wages.
“We used water cannon to disperse them from the highway,” police official Sana Shaminur Rahman told AFP.
Some 2,000 workers from a major factory in Dhaka also walked off their shift and blocked a road in the northern suburb of Kalshi, an AFP photographer at the scene said.
The protests are the first major test for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since winning a fourth term in December 30 elections marred by violence, thousands of arrests and allegations of vote rigging and intimidation.
Bangladesh raised the minimum monthly wage for the garment sector’s four million workers by 51 percent to 8,000 taka ($95) from December.
But senior workers say their raise was less than this and unions, which warn the strikes may spread, say the hike fails to compensate for price rises in recent years.
“We won’t leave the road until our demand is met,” said Asma Khatun, a protesting worker at Kalshi.
Mohammad Abdullah, another worker, said manufacturers have hired local musclemen to stop workers in other factories from joining the protest.
The protests came despite a move by the country’s authorities to set up a committee to review wages.
Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment maker after China.
But despite the industry’s role in transforming the impoverished nation into a major manufacturing hub, garment workers are some of the lowest paid in the world.
The industry also has a poor workplace safety record, with the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Savar killing more than 1,130 people in 2013 in one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.
Following the disaster, major retailers formed two safety groups to push through crucial reforms in the factories, prompting manufacturers to plow in more than a billion dollars in safety upgrades.
One dead, 50 injured in Bangladesh garment workers strike
One dead, 50 injured in Bangladesh garment workers strike
US and Mideast countries seek Kyiv's drone expertise as Russia-Ukraine talks put on ice
KYIV, Ukraine: The United States and its allies in the Middle East are seeking Ukraine's expertise in countering Iran's Shahed drones, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Various countries, including the United States, have approached Ukraine for help in defending against the Iranian drones, Zelenskyy said late Wednesday. He said he has spoken in recent days with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait about possible cooperation.
Russia has fired tens of thousands of Shaheds at Ukraine since it invaded its neighbor just over four years ago, launching a swarm of more than 800 drones and decoys in its biggest nighttime barrage. Iran has responded to joint U.S.-Israeli strikes by launching the same type of drones at countries in the Middle East.
Ukrainian assistance in countering Iranian drones will be provided only if it does not weaken Ukraine's own defenses, and if it adds leverage to Kyiv's diplomatic efforts to stop the Russian invasion, according to the Ukrainian leader.
"We help to defend from war those who help us, Ukraine, bring a just end to the war" with Russia, Zelenskyy said. Later Thursday, Zelenskyy said he had received a U.S. request for support to defend against the drones in the Middle East and had given the order for equipment to be provided along with Ukrainian experts without providing further details.
"Ukraine helps partners who help our security and the protection of our people's lives," he added in a social media post.
Trump, in an interview Thursday with Reuters, said, "Certainly I'll take, you know, any assistance from any country."
Ukraine has battle-tested drone defenses
Ukraine has pioneered the development of cut-price drone killers that cost as little as $1,000, rewriting the air defense rule book and making other countries take notice.
European countries got a wake-up call last September on the changed nature of air defense when Poland scrambled multimillion-dollar military assets, including F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters, in response to airspace violations by cheap drones.
Ukrainian manufacturers have developed low-cost interceptor drones specifically designed to hunt and destroy Shaheds, and its rapidly expanding drone industry is producing excess capacity.
Zelenskyy announced earlier this year that Ukraine would begin exporting the battle-tested systems.
The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said before chairing a meeting of EU and Gulf foreign ministers via video link Thursday that the talks would look at how Ukraine's experience can help countries counter Iranian drones.
Middle East war delays Russia-Ukraine talks
The Iran war, now in its sixth day, has drawn international attention away from Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, and forced the postponement of a new round of U. S-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine planned for this week, Zelenskyy said.
Western governments and analysts say the Russia-Ukraine war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, while there is no sign that yearlong U.S.-led peace efforts will stop the fighting any time soon.
"Right now, because of the situation around Iran, there are not yet the necessary signals for a trilateral meeting," Zelenskyy said. "But as soon as the security situation and the overall political context allow us to resume that trilateral diplomatic work, it will be done."
Zelenskyy thanked the United States for the return from Russia on Thursday of 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Russia's Defense Ministry also said it received the same number of prisoners from Ukraine and thanked the U.S. and United Arab Emirates for mediating.
Prisoner swaps have been one of the few tangible results of the talks. Vladimir Medinsky, a Russian negotiator, said on social media that a total of 500 prisoners from each side would be exchanged between Thursday and Friday.
Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of Ukraine's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to drag out the negotiations so that he can press on with Russia's invasion while escaping further U.S. sanctions.
He urged the U.S. administration to look at the Russia-Ukraine war and the war in the Middle East as linked.
"In reality, Russia and Iran are close allies that act in concert — Iran supplies weapons and Russia helps Iran develop its defense industry. These are interconnected conflicts," Merezhko told The Associated Press.
Ukraine's army has recently pushed back Russian forces at some points along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (750-mile) front line, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Localized Ukrainian counterattacks liberated more territory than Ukrainian forces lost in the last two weeks of February, the Washington-based think tank said this week, estimating the recovered land at about 257 square kilometers (100 square miles) since Jan. 1.
