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Tag: safety

Guest post: after Rana Plaza, let’s stop passing the buck over building regulation

May 7, 2013 10:14am by beyondbrics
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By Qazi Arif of Envision Architects

Nearly two weeks have passed since the disaster at Rana Plaza in Savar, Dhaka, which is considered to be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history, and the deadliest structural failure in modern times.

It is easy to simply say the building was poorly constructed. How and why is harder to understand, given the confusion and and buck-passing surrounding building permits and construction regulation. How can this be prevented in future? Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , Posted in Asia, Bangladesh |

Disney’s withdrawal from Bangladesh

May 3, 2013 2:57pm by Avantika Chilkoti
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Last week’s tragedy at a nine-storey factory complex in Bangladesh has sparked a long-overdue debate on outsourcing to low-wage workers in precarious conditions and what action multinationals should take.

Coincidentally, it is in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster that the Walt Disney Company, the world’s largest licensor, has stopped production of goods under its brand name in Bangladesh. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Asia, Bangladesh |

Guest post: after the Rana Plaza disaster, Bangladesh needs independent, well-funded safety inspectors

Apr 28, 2013 7:31am by beyondbrics
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By Ifty Islam of Asian Tiger Capital Partners

The collapse of Rana Plaza, the eight-storey building housing garment factories in Savar, near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, has seen more than 300 killed and over 1200 injured, with many hundreds still missing.

Coming only five months after 111 deaths in an earlier factory fire, the overwhelming sentiment in Bangladesh has gone from shock to moral outrage about the scant regard for human life among the factory owners. There have been violent protests across Dhaka by thousands of enraged garment factory workers. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , , , Posted in Asia, Bangladesh |

Samsung: chemical leak raises further doubts over working conditions

Mar 5, 2013 7:36am by Song Jung-a
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The Samsung saga involving a toxic chemical leak at its major chipmaking factory doesn’t seem to be over yet.

South Korea’s environment ministry said on Tuesday that it will investigate the incident to see if some hydrofluoric acid was leaked to the outside of the plant and whether Samsung’s safety facilities are well maintained to protect its workers from toxic chemicals. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, South Korea |

Ikea insists its Chinese meatballs are horsemeat-free

Feb 26, 2013 11:32am by Patti Waldmeir
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China has gained such fame for food safety crises that Chinese consumers are normally delighted to be told that what they are eating is imported rather than local.

But on Tuesday Ikea turned the tables by announcing that the Swedish meatballs in its mainland cafeterias are safe – precisely because they are Chinese. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in China |

Samsung struggles for plant safety

Jan 29, 2013 11:00am by Song Jung-a
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A toxic chemical leak at a Samsung plant in South Korea killed one worker and injured others, renewing concerns about safety at the technology giant.

Much like many of its manufacturing peers, the South Korean chaebol has already faced a series of accusations that it has failed to protect workers both at home in South Korea and abroad at its China factories. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Asia, South Korea |

BB: time to register

Dear beyondbrics readers,

After more than three years of fully open access, we are taking the step of asking our readers to register on FT.com to read our articles. Beyondbrics will still be free but we'd like to know a bit more about you, our readers. Other FT blogs (including Alphaville) already do the same thing. Registration is active on beyondbrics from May 6.

Many of you are already registered on FT.com, or are subscribers - in which case, if you are logged in to the site you will not notice any difference. Just carry on as before.

For those of you not yet registered, it's a simple process which only takes a few moments.

Reading beyondbrics articles will NOT deduct from your free monthly quota of stories on FT.com.

Many thanks

Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor

Global equities macromap

Number of the day

-0.2% Fall in Polish retail sales in April, rather worse than 1.1 per cent growth expected.

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