Bangladesh

SYDNEY

Australian Retailers Feel Heat of Bangladesh Tragedy

Australia’s largest textile workers’ union and activist groups are up in arms that the country’s leading retail chains, who source most of their fashion labels from Bangladesh, are refusing to sign a legally binding accord that will help to improve labour and safety standards in Bangladeshi garment factories.

Life Terms Urged in Bangladesh Building Collapse

By AJ Correspondents

Those responsible for the Bangladesh building collapse that killed more than 1,000 garment workers should be given life in prison, a government-appointed committee has said.

Fresh Water “More Precious Than Gold” in Bangladesh

By Naimul Haq

Fahima Begum rises each morning at dawn and walks two kilometres to a small pond, the nearest source of fresh water. On her way she passes the rusty old hand-pumped tube well that used to supply water to her village in Bangladesh’s arid Barind region until the water table here dropped out of reach.

Survivors of Factory Collapse Speak Out

By Naimul Haq

“It was dark and hot with choking dust all around. The air was filled with the smell of decomposing corpses,” recalled Nasima, a 24-year-old factory worker who spent four days buried under the rubble of an eight-storey building that collapsed in a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka last month.

Civil Society Under Attack Around the World

By Mandeep S.Tiwana

In December 2011, 159 governments and major international organisations recognised the central role of civil society in development and promised to create an “enabling” operating environment for the non-profit sector.

Female Garment Workers Bear Brunt of Tragedy

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

Last month, 18-year-old Shapla was just another one of thousands of garment workers employed in a factory in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka.

Bangladesh Jamaat Leader Sentenced to Death

By AJ Correspondents

A Bangladesh war crimes tribunal has convicted and sentenced the assistant secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party to death for war crimes, raising fears of clashes between the police and supporters of the Islamist leader.

Islamists Lay Siege to Dhaka

By Naimul Haq

Adding to a long list of domestic woes, including a factory collapse that left hundreds dead last month, Bangladesh is now grappling with a wave of violence that threatens to deepen the gulf between secular sections of society and religious fundamentalists.

Few Meaningful Changes in Wake of Dhaka Factory Collapse

By Katelyn Fossett

Worker advocacy groups here are calling on some of the most high-profile U.S.-based clothing companies to make drastic reforms to their international labour practices in the wake of the factory collapse that killed more than 420 workers in Dhaka last week.

Protests Evoke Memories of Liberation

By Naimul Haq

“This is a revolution,” declares Mamtaj Jahan Halima, a young law student from Bangladesh’s southwestern Khulna district. “People of all ages, irrespective of religion, caste and culture have united – we have not witnessed such a peaceful uprising since before independence.”