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Factory fire, flyover collapse kill 137 in Bangladesh
Stocks plunge after Mursi power grab
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Six killed, 90 hurt in attack on Shia procession in Pakistan
Pakistani security officials at the site of a bomb blast
in Dera Ismail Khan on Sunday. — AP/PTI
Catalonia poll tests Spanish unity
I’m running out of time to be king: Charles
Exhumation of Arafat’s body hopes to quell poison quandary
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Factory fire, flyover collapse kill 137 in Bangladesh
Dhaka, November 25 In one of the worst fire tragedies in the country, a blaze broke out at Tazrin Fashion factory in suburban Ashulia Savar, 30 km from Dhaka, last night and quickly spread to the ground and first floors of the six-storey building. "We have so far retrieved 124 bodies (and) rescue campaign is still underway," Major Mahbub Hossain, a senior fire service official, told PTI over phone, adding that most of the bodies were found severely charred. He said the toll could rise. In another incident, an under-construction flyover collapsed in Chittagong, leaving 13 persons dead and over 50 injured. At around 8 pm last night, three concrete girders of the flyover fell on some people, mostly vegetable vendors, local media reported. A five-member probe panel has been formed to investigate the incident. It was asked to submit its report within three days. Mohd Abdul Mannan, Assistant Director of Fire Service and Civil Defence, was quoted as saying by The Daily Star that 13 people died in the accident. President Zillur Rahman expressed his deep shock and sorrow at loss of lives in the two tragic incidents. In a condolence message, he conveyed his deep sympathies to members of the bereaved families. The President asked the concerned authorities to put in their highest efforts for ensuring proper treatment of the injured people. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also voiced shock at the loss of so many lives and asked authorities to conduct thorough search-and-rescue operations. About the garment factory blaze, witnesses said it was the worst fire tragedy in recent years. Fire service officials earlier said several workers of the factory were trapped inside and took shelter on the rooftop of the structure awaiting rescuers. Authorities had mobilised several fire fighting units to douse the blaze. Television footage showed army troops and fire service rescuers bringing out bodies one after another from the debris as hundreds of people, including relatives of the victims, waited outside. General Officer Commanding of nearby Savar Cantonment Maj Gen Syed Hassan Suhrawardy, who was overseeing the rescue campaign, said the bodies would be kept at a nearby primary school premises from where relatives could take them for burial. Many workers jumped from the factory's upper floors to escape the flames before firefighters arrived to put the blaze out. The cause was not immediately known but such fires are usually blamed on short circuits. Authorities called out extra police force at the scene as angry relatives and fellow workers damaged a fire engine, protesting the delay in dousing the blaze. According to media reports, Tazrin Fashion made clothes for the Dutch chain C&A and the Hong Kong supplier Li & Fung.
— PTI
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Stocks plunge after Mursi power grab
Cairo, November 25 More than 500 persons have been injured in protests since Friday, when Egyptians awoke to news that Mursi had issued a decree widening his powers and shielding them from judicial review. However, Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters called nationwide demonstrations in support of the Islamist President in his showdown with the judges over the path to a new constitution. Sunday's stock market fall of nearly 10 per cent, halted only by automatic curbs, was the worst since the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Images of protesters clashing with the riot police and tear gas wafting through Cairo's Tahrir Square were an unsettling reminder of that revolution. "We are back to square one, politically, socially," said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage firm. Judges announced on Saturday they would go on strike. Liberal politician Mohammed ElBaradei called Mursi a "dictator". Forged out of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, the Mursi administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms that will complete Egypt's democratic transformation. Yet leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak, while Islamist parties have rallied behind Mursi. "There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says 'let us split the difference'," prominent opposition leader ElBaradei said. "I am waiting to see, I hope soon, a very strong statement of condemnation by the US, by Europe and by everybody who really cares about human dignity," he said in an interview with Reuters and the Associated Press. Activists opposed to the Mursi decree were camped out in central Cairo for a third consecutive day. State media reported that Mursi met for a second day with his advisers.
— Reuters
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Six killed, 90 hurt in attack on Shia procession in Pakistan
At least six persons were killed and nearly 90 others injured on Sunday when a Shia procession was targeted with a bomb at Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's restive northwest, the second such attack in the city in as many days. The attack occurred as the minority Shia community observed their holiest day of Ashura.
The bomb, planted in a shop in Chogla area of Dera Ismail Khan, was triggered by remote-control as a procession was passing by. A security personnel was among the five persons killed in the attack, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. Four security personnel, women and children were among the injured. Several of the wounded were in a critical condition. Yesterday, eight persons were killed and about 20 injured when another Shia procession was targeted with a roadside bomb in Dera Ismail Khan. The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for both bombings in the city as well as a suicide attack on a Shia procession in Rawalpindi that killed 23 persons and injured over 60 on Wednesday. Authorities called in army soldiers to patrol the streets of Dera Ismail Khan after the attacks. The bombings caused widespread panic in the city. (With inputs from agencies)
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Catalonia poll tests Spanish unity
Barcelona, November 25 Opinion polls show two-thirds of voters will vote for parties that want Catalan independence, and the election may therefore provoke a constitutional crisis over the legality of a referendum on independence. Pro-independence flags, a star against red and yellow stripes, hung over balconies all over Barcelona, its capital city. Shop owner Margarita Bascompte told Reuters "in two weeks we sold more than we have in the last eight years". Many Catalans believe they are taxed unfairly, crimping local spending on infrastructure and job creation. An estimated 16 billion euros ($21 billion) in taxes paid in Catalonia, about 8 per cent of its economic output, is not returned to the region. "Those who support (President Artur) Mas feel mistreated by Spain for a long time and we are fed up. The economic crisis has made the difference," said Rosabel Casajoana, 64, a teacher, emerging from a polling station having voted for CiU. Mas's conservative Convergence and Union party, or CiU, is seen winning the most seats in the 135-seat regional assembly, or Parlament. But the projected 62 to 64 CiU deputies is short of an absolute majority, so Mas, newly converted to separatism, will have to team up with smaller pro-independence groups such as the Republican Left, or ERC, to push ahead with a plebiscite. Home to car factories and banks that generate one fifth of Spain's economic wealth, and birthplace of surrealist painter Salvador Dali and architect Antoni Gaudi, the region also has one of the world's most successful football clubs, FC Barcelona. With more people than Denmark and an economy almost as big as Portugal's, Catalonia has its own language. Like Basques, Catalans see themselves as distinct from the rest of Spain. A recent convert to the cause of independence after a massive street demonstration in September, Mas campaigned on a promise to hold a referendum on secession.
— Reuters
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I’m running out of time to be king: Charles
London, November 25 "Impatient? Me? What a thing to suggest! Yes of course I am," the Telegraph quoted him as saying. "I'll run out of time soon. I shall have snuffed it if I'm not careful," he said. In 2008, Charles became the longest-waiting heir to the throne in British history, when he overtook his great-great grandfather, Edward VII. While royal aides maintain that Duke of Cambridge is fulfilled by his current role as heir apparent, supporting the Queen and being actively involved with the Prince's Trust and his numerous other charities, many royal commentators have suggested that Charles feels frustrated that his reign has not yet begun.
— ANI
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Exhumation of Arafat’s body hopes to quell poison quandary
Ramallah, November 25 "It is very painful. It is a shock, and it is not easy for myself or my daughter," Arafat's widow Suha Arafat told AFP by telephone from her home in Malta ahead of the highly controversial procedure. French doctors were unable to say what killed the Palestinians' first democratically elected President and an autopsy was never performed at his widow's request. But many Palestinians believed he was poisoned by Israel, a theory that gained ground in July when Al-Jazeera reported Swiss findings showing abnormal quantities of the radioactive substance polonium on Arafat's personal effects.
— AFP
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Inquiry into Savita’s death to be finished by Christmas: Minister New law in UK to tackle stalking
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At least six persons were killed and nearly 90 others injured on Sunday when a Shia procession was targeted with a bomb at Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's restive northwest, the second such attack in the city in as many days. The attack occurred as the minority Shia community observed their holiest day of
Ashura.
One of the Middle East's greatest political mysteries will come a step closer to being solved on Tuesday when scientists exhume iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's remains to see if he was poisoned.
"It is very painful. It is a shock, and it is not easy for myself or my daughter," Arafat's widow Suha Arafat told AFP by telephone from her home in Malta ahead of the highly controversial procedure.
