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DHAKA (Reuters) - In the weeks since the Rana Plaza collapse killed more than 1,100 workers, at least five different Bangladesh agencies have sent teams to begin inspecting the estimated 5,600 factories that make up the nation's $20 billion garment industry.

But there's little coordination between the agencies, and senior government officials are unable to say just how many factories have been checked. Estimates vary from just 60 to 340.

While U.S. and European retailers which buy the bulk of Bangladesh-made clothing had hoped to complete factory inspections within 9-12 months, inspectors and government officials say this will take at least 5 years.

Bangladesh has fewer than 200 qualified inspectors.

The disconnect among the various agencies conducting what are often cursory visual assessments - Bangladesh has nowhere near enough technical equipment for sophisticated inspections - means some garment factories have been visited several times, while others have had no checks at all.

"It's a big nuisance for us, and while we're being put through this, nobody's checking all the other factories in the vicinity that haven't had a single inspection," said Emdadul Islam, a director of Babylon Garments, which supplies Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Tesco Plc and Hennes & Mauritz AB's H&M stores. "Our managers are focusing on entertaining inspectors instead of their work because none of these teams are speaking to each other."

Babylon has passed six safety inspections this year. Islam showed Reuters certificates from Bureau Veritas, the firm Wal-Mart has hired to inspect suppliers, and Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA), which inspects Tesco factories. Others to have carried out checks include the Bangladesh textiles ministry and the national garment association, whose 4-person inspection crew spent 3 hours hunting for cracks that could indicate structural flaws like those at Rana Plaza - an illegally built tower where safety warnings were ignored.

A Reuters reporter followed teams of local inspectors touring more than half a dozen factories in and around the capital Dhaka this month, and spoke to factory owners, government officials and engineers to gauge progress in attempts to assure the safety of the garment industry's buildings.

'RELATIVELY COMPLIANT'

During a surprise safety check at Miami Garments, a worker unearthed a fire extinguisher from beneath a pile of shirts to show a government inspector. It was the only one in the 15,000 square foot, 4-storey factory. The building code requires one extinguisher per 550 square feet.

Inspector Abdul Latif Helaly and two colleagues from Dhaka's Capital Development Authority, responsible for urban development, noted it on a list of observations about the factory, which is in a residential building - another building code violation. There was just a single narrow exit staircase, weak floors and structural columns insufficient to support the factory's load, the inspectors found.

"This is a relatively compliant factory and no action needs to be taken here," Helaly said after the 30-minute visual inspection, made without the use of any tools. "We have asked the owners to move their factory to a new building soon and they have agreed to do it in the next 1-2 years."

After signing the factory's clean bill of health, the inspectors were each handed two shirts by the owners.

"PAINSTAKINGLY SLOW"

Bangladesh pledged to boost worker rights and recruit more safety inspectors after the European Union, which gives preferential access to Bangladeshi garments, threatened punitive measures. Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama cut off trade benefits for Bangladesh in a mostly symbolic response to conditions in the garment industry.

Bangladesh's garment exports rose 16 percent in June, showing that retailers have not turned away since the Rana Plaza tragedy.

A group of 80 mostly European retailers who signed an accord to carry out coordinated inspections in Bangladesh have started hiring and training inspectors on their own to check the around 1,000 factories that supply their brands.

"This whole process is painstakingly slow," said Jyrki Raina, general secretary of the Switzerland-based IndustriALL union that is overseeing the plan. He said the group would complete only initial safety checks within 9 months, and will take around 5 years to make repairs, conduct final inspections and declare all factories safe.

North American retailers like Wal-Mart and GAP formed their own alliance [ID:nL1N0FG0S2] and are confident of fully checking the 500 factories that supply their members by July 2014. They are hiring third-party agencies to inspect factories and not re-inspect those that have already been passed fit, said Nate Herman, vice president for international trade at the American Apparel and Footwear Association, which is part of the alliance. He said the inspections would begin from November.

WORKING IN ISOLATION

At a building safety conference in Dhaka earlier this month, government agencies, the powerful Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), reached no agreement on how to coordinate safety checks.

Reuters spoke to five officials who attended the meeting and found they had overlapped inspecting some factories and not shared their findings.

"We have to independently verify the buildings and anyway the association cannot be held responsible for the lack of co-ordination. The government needs to look at it," said Shamsul Haque, the BGMEA's additional secretary.

The BGMEA, which has 10 inspectors, said it has checked 400 factories and shut 20 of them. The plan is to complete visual inspections of all 2,500 member factories by December - an ambitious average of 12 inspections a day based on teams of 3-4 inspectors taking at least 3 hours to finish each check.

Results of initial visual inspections that raise a red flag are passed on to BUET, the country's premier engineering university, for closer scrutiny.

PAINTING OVER THE CRACKS

While BUET has the expertise to carry out structural inspections, it lacks both the manpower and the gear.

"We need more sophisticated equipment and if we double our staff strength from 30 we can aim to finish a thorough preliminary assessment on all factories in 18 months," said Mohammad Mujibur Rahman, head of the university's civil engineering department - which is in talks with the government for permission to hire more people.

On a recent tour of the Bengal Indigo factory, cracks on the walls had been covered with fresh paint and plaster before BUET Professors Mehedi Ahmed Ansary and Raquib Ahsan arrived. "It looks like the owners have tried to cover the cracks, but it's still visible," said Ahsan, who like other professors conducts inspections in addition to his full-time teaching job.

The two professors raised concerns about the weight of machines and clothing on the top floor, and noted the building deviated from design blueprints. They asked the company to submit to a voluntary secondary assessment, which will take more than two months as engineers check the plant's column strength and study steel, concrete and cement samples.

Full inspections on all factories will take up to 7 years, and plans for that are being discussed with the government and the International Labour Organization, said BUET's Rahman.

"The post-collapse impetus to inspect factories has slowed and it's definitely proving to be a challenge to make sure this whole effort doesn't fizzle out," he said.

(Editing by Emily Kaiser and Ian Geoghegan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-bangladesh-struggles-check-garment-factories-safe-210921771.html

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Sony to host Gamescom conference on August 20 at 6pm BST

Posted 2:01pm on Fri 26 July 2013

VG_Staff

Posts: 22,626

Expect more details on the PS4, perhaps a release date.

Read News

Posted 2:01pm on Fri 26 July 2013

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Posts: 7

I thought I was going to miss this because I'm going to Leeds festival but I'm not going till the Wednesday so I'll be able to watch it live woop!

Source: http://community.videogamer.com/forums/article_comments/sony_to_host_gamescom_conference_on_august_20_at_6pm_bst/?goto=new

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Mayor seeks therapy over sex scandal

By Marty Graham

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner on Friday defied calls to resign over a hail of sexual harassment allegations, but apologized to the women he offended and said he would take a two-week leave of absence to undergo intensive therapy.

A day after the San Diego County Democratic Central Committee urged him to step down, the 70-year-old Democrat and former congressman said he would enter a counseling clinic on August 5, while keeping an eye on the affairs of California's second largest city.

"The behavior I have engaged in over many years is wrong," Filner told a news conference. "My failure to respect women and the intimidating conduct I engaged in at times is inexcusable. It has undermined what I have spent my entire professional life working on - fighting for equality and justice for all people."

Seven women have publicly accused Filner of groping and making other unwanted sexual advances toward them, including four who came forward in a group interview aired late Thursday on public television station KPBS.

Among them were retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Veronica "Ronnie" Froman and Joyce Gattas, dean of the College of Professional Studies and Fine arts at San Diego State University.

Their TV appearance came as the county Democratic Central Committee, a council of local party bosses and elected officials, voted 34-6 to approve a non-binding resolution demanding that Filner leave office.

The committee said in a statement on Friday that it stood by its position that Filner should go. But some experts said the mayor seemed determined to try to hang on to his job at almost all costs.

"He's not only hunkered down in the bunker, he's taken the hinges off the door and welded it shut," said Carl Luna, a political science professor at San Diego Mesa College.

During his two-week leave, Filner said he would be in counseling at the clinic full-time but would be briefed on city activities every morning and evening until his planned return to regular duties on August 19.

"I must become a better person, and my hope is that by becoming a better person, I put myself in a position to someday be forgiven," he added. He began his remarks by offering apologies to his staff and San Diego's citizens, adding, "Most of all, I apologize to the women that I have offended."

RESIGNATION DEMANDS

Filner spoke from his office at City Hall just 30 minutes after organizers of a recall effort held their own news conference to highlight their campaign and to present a letter to the mayor's office demanding his resignation by 5 p.m.

Numerous prominent local Democrats already had called for Filner to step down. One of them, Todd Gloria, who is president of the City Council and would become interim mayor if Filner were to resign, said his latest move to address the issue did not go far enough.

"Filner's announcement prolongs the pain when San Diegans are calling for an end to this civic nightmare," Gloria said in a Twitter message.

During her weekly news conference in Washington on Thursday, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Filner should seek private counseling and compared his behavior to the conduct of another ex-congressman engulfed in a sex scandal since he turned to mayoral politics - Democrat Anthony Weiner of New York.

Weiner faces calls to withdraw from the New York City mayor's race after admitting he sent lewd online messages to women since he resigned from Capitol Hill over such behavior two years ago.

"The conduct of some of these people that we are talking about here is reprehensible. It is so disrespectful of women. And what is really stunning about it is they don't even realize it. You know, they don't have a clue," she said.

The clamor for Filner's ouster intensified after his former press secretary, Irene McCormack Jackson, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the mayor and the city on Monday, accusing him of unwanted physical contact and suggestive comments.

Jackson's lawyer, Gloria Allred, dismissed Filner's "decision to seek therapy as a ploy to stay in power and to try to gain sympathy."

"It is ridiculous to think that he needs therapy in order to understand that women deserve respect and should not be treated like pieces of meat."

On Friday, the City Attorney's Office served Filner with a subpoena in the civil suit, demanding that he submit to a deposition on August 9, about 10 days before the mayor is due to finish his therapy.

"Testifying under oath is part of due process. We expect Mayor Filner to attend absent a court order to the contrary," Assistant City Attorney Paul Cooper said.

The City Attorney's Office has said that Filner has retained a private attorney to handle his legal matters stemming the scandal, and spokesman Michael Giorgino added on Friday, "We don't see a basis for the city paying for private therapy."

Filner was elected mayor of the normally conservative-leaning city last year after a 20-year career in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republicans, for whom his current troubles pose a chance to seize back the city's top-elected post, have called for his resignation since allegations against him first surfaced on July 11, even before any of the alleged victims went public.

"Two weeks of therapy will not end decades of bad behavior," Republican City Councilman Kevin Faulconer said. "He needs to resign and seek long-term treatment as a private citizen."

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/san-diego-area-democrats-meeting-over-mayors-sex-004259438.html

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

98% A Hijacking

All Critics (59) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (1)

To refuse to call A Hijacking a thriller is not to say it isn't thrilling, in a dryly cerebral way.

It's the second feature from the young writer-director Tobias Lindholm, and it showcases his gift for tightly focused stories told without an ounce of fat.

Lindholm doesn't present the film as a procedural for hostage negotiations because he knows too well that there are too many movable parts, too many things that can go wrong.

Methodical and tense ... has the feel of something based on real-life events ... boils down to an arresting portrait of two men, with different backgrounds and abilities, doing everything they can not to break.

We're impatient for action, any kind of action - but preferably the sort that involves a team of Navy SEALs, maybe led by Dwayne Johnson. Instead, we get something like a merger meeting.

Hand-held camerawork, so often a confounded nuisance, here makes the conditions on board the Rozen feel nauseatingly urgent.

When the gut-wrenching conclusion of A Hijacking comes in the form of a single, random act, it's only then you realize how far you've been pulled into its emotional core.

A Hijacking delivers all the thrills the title suggests, but in none of the places you'd expect them.

The danger never reaches the level of chaos, but the subtext and metaphor in the slow-moving humanistic commentary on the motivations and byproducts of capitalism make for an intriguing film.

A smart movie derived out of the small moments that collectively comprise the hostage experience, rather than grandiose gestures.

Lindholm's you-are-there docudrama works as a tense thriller, but themes of negotiation and the ability to empathize provide a rich subtext.

...slow, mostly talk, but tense and realistic...

The level of suspense in this riveting Danish thriller doesn't build in sweeping melodramatic fashion, but rather at a low-key simmer that emphasizes authentic character dynamics.

A Hijacking accomplishes a tricky task, generating tension through talk rather than action.

This absorbing chronicle of a hijacking in the Indian Ocean has the strengths of the best procedural dramas -- it assumes a distanced and objective tone and packs an emotional wallop.

Moment by moment we find ourselves wondering what will happen next...

Auteur Tobias Lindholm does a striking job in grabbing your attention and running with it as he succinctly tells the story of "A Hijacking."

A Hijacking is an absorbing, highly moving film that's lingered heavily on the mind for a couple of days now.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_hijacking/

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Egypt on the edge after Mursi rebuffs army ultimatum

By Shaimaa Fayed and Paul Taylor

CAIRO (Reuters) - President Mohamed Mursi rebuffed an army ultimatum to force a resolution to Egypt's political crisis, saying on Tuesday that he had not been consulted and would pursue his own plans for national reconciliation.

But the Islamist leader looked increasingly isolated, with ministers resigning, the liberal opposition refusing to talk to him and the armed forces, backed by millions of protesters in the street, giving him until Wednesday to agree to share power.

Newspapers across the political spectrum saw the army's 48-hour deadline as a turning point. "Last 48 hours of Muslim Brotherhood rule," the opposition daily El Watan declared. "Egypt awaits the army," said the state-owned El Akhbar.

The confrontation has pushed the most populous Arab nation closer to the brink amid a deepening economic crisis two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, raising concern in Washington, Europe and neighboring Israel.

Protesters remained encamped overnight in Cairo's central Tahrir Square and protest leaders called for another mass rally on Tuesday evening to try to force the president out.

Senior members of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood used the word "coup" to describe the military ultimatum, backed by a threat that the generals will otherwise impose their own road map for the nation.

In a statement issued nine hours after General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi delighted Mursi's opponents by effectively ordering the president to heed the demands of demonstrators, the president's office used considerably less direct language to indicate he would go his own way.

"The president of the republic was not consulted about the statement issued by the armed forces," it said. "The presidency sees that some of the statements in it carry meanings that could cause confusion in the complex national environment.

"The presidency confirms that it is going forward on its previously plotted path to promote comprehensive national reconciliation ... regardless of any statements that deepen divisions between citizens."

The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, said the Egyptian people alone had the right to draw a roadmap for the nation and had done so in the constitution approved in a referendum last December.

It called on the people "to rally to defend constitutional legitimacy and express their refusal of any coup against it."

Describing civilian rule as a great gain from the revolution of 2011, Mursi said he would not let the clock be turned back. Egypt's first freely elected leader, he has been in office for just a year. But many Egyptians are impatient with his economic management and inability to win the trust of non-Islamists.

Mursi also spoke to U.S. President Barack Obama by phone on Monday, the presidency said in a separate statement, stressing that Egypt was moving forward with a peaceful democratic transition based on the law and constitution.

The White House said Obama, visiting Tanzania, encouraged him to respond to the protests and "underscored that the current crisis can only be resolved through a political process".

RESIGNATIONS

Six ministers who are not members of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood have tendered their resignations since Sunday's huge demonstrations, including foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, the official MENA news agency said.

In another blow to the president, Egypt's top appeals court on Tuesday upheld the dismissal of the prosecutor general appointed by Mursi last year. He was a major bugbear to the liberal opposition.

The court decision removed public prosecutor Talaat Abdallah, accused of using his position to pursue journalists, artists and critics of the president while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. It reinstated his predecessor.

The ruling contributed to a sense that Mursi's administration is disintegrating even as he clings to office.

Mursi's military adviser, U.S.-trained former chief-of-staff General Sami Enan, also resigned.

"The Egyptian people have spoken and as a result everyone must listen and implement, especially since this unprecedented (protest) was accompanied by the fall of some martyrs which is unacceptable because Egyptian blood is valued highly and must be preserved," Enan told Al Arabiya television.

El-Watan quoted senior General Adel El-Mursi as saying that if there were no agreement among political leaders to hold early presidential elections, the alternative could involve "a return to revolutionary legitimacy".

Under that scenario, the sole functioning chamber of parliament, the Islamist-dominated Shura Council, would be dissolved, the Islamist-tinged constitution enacted under Mursi would be scrapped, and a presidential council would rule by decree until fresh elections could be held under new rules, he was quoted as saying. That is largely the opposition position.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the reported plan. A military spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Highlighting the huge scale of anti-Mursi protests, an opposition TV station broadcast aerial footage of vast crowds thronging Cairo's central Tahrir Square, spilling over a wide adjoining area and stretching across the Nile bridges.

The armed forces used helicopters to monitor the crowds on Sunday and Monday.

Attacks on Brotherhood offices have added to feelings among Islamists that they are under siege. Some Brotherhood leaders, who swept a series of votes last year, said they would look to put their own supporters on the streets.

World powers are looking on anxiously, including the United States, which has long funded the Egyptian army as a key component in the security of Washington's ally Israel.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to Sisi, his Egyptian counterpart, on Monday. It is unclear how far the Egyptian military has informed, or coordinated with, its U.S. sponsors.

The United Nations Human Rights office called on Mursi to listen to the demands of the people and engage in a "serious national dialogue" but also said: "Nothing should be done that would undermine democratic processes."

A senior European diplomat said that if the army were to go further and remove Mursi by force, the international community would have no alternative but to condemn the toppling of a democratically elected president.

Yasser El-Shimy, Egypt analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the army's move, by hardening positions on either side, had it very difficult to find a constitutional way out of the crisis - for which Mursi could use his power of decree.

"It will have to override the constitution and wage a full coup," Shimy said of the army. "Things could deteriorate very rapidly from there, either through confrontations on the street, or international sanctions.

"Mursi is calling their bluff. Saying to them, 'if you are going to do this, you will have to do it over my dead body'."

DEADLINES

The coalition that backed Sunday's protests said there was no question of negotiating now with Mursi on the general's timetable and it was already formulating positions for discussion directly with the army once the 48 hours are up.

In his statement, Sisi insisted that he had the interests of democracy at heart - a still very flawed democracy that Egyptians have been able to practice as a result of the army pushing aside Mubarak in the face of a popular uprising in 2011.

That enhanced the already high standing of the army among Egyptians, and the sight of military helicopters streaming national flags over Cairo's Tahrir Square at sunset, after Sisi had laid down the law, sent huge crowds into a frenzy of cheers.

Among Mursi's allies are groups with more militant pasts, including al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, a sometime associate of al Qaeda, whose men fought Mubarak's security forces for years and who have warned they would not tolerate renewed military rule.

Some Islamist groups, notably the Salafi Nour Party, which came second only to the Brotherhood in parliamentary elections last year, called for dialogue.

Liberal coalition leaders appointed former U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei as their negotiator with the army and are pushing for the senior judge on the constitutional court to replace Mursi as head of state for an interim period, while technocrats - and generals - would administer the country.

A military source said Sisi was keen not to repeat the experience of the 17 months between Mubarak's fall and Mursi's election, when a committee of generals formed a government that proved unpopular as the economy struggled.

The army would prefer a more hands-off approach, supervising government but not running it.

For many Egyptians, fixing the economy is key. Unrest since Mubarak fell has decimated tourism and investment and state finances are in poor shape, drained by extensive subsidy regimes and struggling to provide regular supplies of fuel.

The Cairo bourse, reopening after a holiday, shot up nearly 5 percent in early trade after the army's move.

(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, Alexander Dziadosz, Shaimaa Fayed, Maggie Fick, Alastair Macdonald, Shadia Nasralla, Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh, Paul Taylor and Patrick Werr in Cairo and Yursi; Mohamed in Ismailia; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Paul Taylor; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-army-gives-mursi-48-hours-share-power-002847586.html

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