Anger on streets as Bangladesh building toll passes 300

By Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul

DHAKA (Reuters) - The search for survivors from Bangladesh's worst industrial accident stretched into a third day on Friday, with the death toll rising to 273 after the collapse of a building housing factories that made low-cost garments for Western brands.

Almost miraculously, 41 people trapped inside the rubble of the eight-storey building were rescued alive late on Thursday, government minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak said, about 40 hours after the disaster on the outskirts of Dhaka.

Nanak said they had been working on the fourth floor of the Rana Plaza building and had all been found trapped in one room. Few other details were available.

Around 2,000 people have been rescued over the past two days, at least half of them injured, but as many as 1,000 people remain unaccounted for.

An industry official has said 3,122 people, mainly female garment workers, were inside the building despite warnings that it was structurally unsafe.

Rescuers from Bangladesh's army, navy and air force, as well as police and fire services, pored over huge piles of rubble and twisted metal in the search for survivors, using their bare hands as well as mechanical equipment.

"We are not sure how many people are still trapped under the rubble," said Dhaka District police chief Habibur Rahman, who updated the death toll early on Friday to 273. "Priority has been given to save people who are still alive," he said.

Wednesday's disaster refocused attention on Western high-street brands that use Bangladesh as a source of low-cost goods.

North American and European chains, including British retailer Primark and Canada's Loblaw, said they were supplied by factories in the Rana Plaza building, which is in the commercial suburb of Savar, about 30 km (20 miles) from the capital.

TRAPPED WORKERS CALL FOR HELP

Savar residents and rescuers dropped bottled water and food on Thursday night to people who called out from between floors.

Relatives identified their dead among dozens of corpses wrapped in cloth on the veranda of a nearby school.

Police said the owner of the building, Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local politician from the ruling Awami League, was told of dangerous cracks on Tuesday.

While a bank in the building closed on Wednesday because of the warnings, the five clothing companies told their workers there was no danger, industry officials said. Rana is now on the run, according to police.

"We asked the garment owners to keep it closed," said Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) President Mohammad Atiqul Islam.

Despite the overnight rescue of 41 people, officials conceded the chances of finding more alive were growing slimmer.

"We can't be certain of getting them all out alive. We are losing a bit of hope," fire brigade rescue worker Mizanur Rahman said earlier on Thursday.

Special prayers will be offered at mosques, temples and pagodas across Bangladesh on Friday for the dead, injured and missing. The government declared a national day of mourning and flags were flown at half mast at all official buildings.

Anger over the working conditions of Bangladesh's 3.6 million garment workers, the overwhelming majority of them women, has grown steadily since the building collapse.

More than 1,000 textile workers besieged the BGMEA on Thursday, pelting it with stones and clashing with riot police. The workers demanded all garment factories be shut and the owners harshly punished for accidents.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest apparel exporter, with the bulk of exports - 60 percent - going to Europe. The United States takes 23 percent and Canada takes 5 percent.

Primark, a unit of Associated British Foods, has confirmed one of its suppliers occupied the second floor of the building. Danish retailer PWT Group, which owns the Texman brand, said it had been using a factory in the building for seven years.

Canada's Loblaw, a unit of food processing and distribution firm George Weston Ltd, said one factory made a small number items for its "Joe Fresh" label.

Primark, Loblaw and PWT operate under codes of conduct aimed at ensuring products are made in good working conditions.

Documents including order sheets and cutting plans obtained by Reuters appeared to show that other major brands such as Benetton had used suppliers in the building in the past year.

A Benetton spokesman said none of the factories were suppliers to the company. Spain's Mango said it had an unfulfilled sample order at the plaza with Phantom Apparel.

(Additional reporting by Anis Ahmed in Dhaka, John Chalmers in New Delhi, Jessica Wohl and Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Chicago, Solarina Ho in Toronto, Robert Hertz in Madrid and Mette Kronholm Fraende in Copenhagen; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Congress passes plan to ease flight delays

By Doug Palmer and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a Senate plan to ease nationwide air-traffic delays caused by automatic federal spending cuts, seeking to calm irritated travelers but sparking a backlash from interest groups not spared from cuts.

The Senate had unanimously voted for the plan late Thursday and the House approved it by a 361-41 vote. White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama plans to sign the bill.

The legislation will give the Department of Transportation flexibility to use about $250 million in unspent funds to cover the costs of air traffic controllers and other essential employees at the Federal Aviation Administration who had been furloughed.

Congressional approval of the bill, barely four pages long, came as lawmakers looked to fly out of Washington for a week-long recess. It was not clear how quickly the air delays will ease once the bill is enacted.

Lawmakers were eager to stem the growing wrath of the traveling public, which had dealt with significant take-off and landing delays since the furloughs started on Sunday.

They had also faced anger from airline CEOs whose companies had mounted a grassroots campaign through a website called dontgroundamerica.com, encouraging Americans to send messages to Congress and the White House.

The quick legislative action marks a surprising bipartisan effort, especially after many Republicans had accused the Obama administration of manipulating funds to maximize the impact of the budget cuts and thus make Republicans look bad.

FRESH LOBBYING TO FOLLOW?

The move does come with the risk, though, of unleashing lobbying campaigns to ease other program cuts triggered by the controversial "sequestration" that took effect on March 1, requiring across-the-board spending cuts among most federal agencies.

Even as they lined up behind the bipartisan bill, House Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for what House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called "mindless" across-the-board spending cuts that brought the FAA furloughs.

Republican Representative Tom Latham of Iowa, who oversees transportation spending, accused the Obama administration of "shameful politics" by carrying out the furloughs, which the FAA said were required by the deficit-reduction law. "This is no way to run a government," he said.

Democrat after Democrat reminded Republicans that the Republican-controlled House had approved the sequestration in 2011. They complained that the FAA legislation fails to prevent 70,000 poor children from losing pre-school education, 4 million fewer meals from being delivered to poor, elderly people and stop the grounding of some military air combat units.

"Let's deal with all the adverse cuts, not just those that affect the affluent traveling sector," said Representative Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat.

JOB 'WELL DONE'

Democratic Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland summed up the quick passage of the bill, as Congress hurried to start its recess, by saying: "Members of this House are going to run for the airports. They're all going to be flying home on airplanes. And, yes, they will make it easier for members of Congress to get through those lines. And they will pat themselves on the back and say job well done."

The plan for the budget cuts was originally hatched by Washington in 2011 as a way to force the White House and Congress to find an alternative budget deal. But policymakers failed to reach such a deal earlier this year.

The cuts aimed to trim a total $109 billion from federal spending through September of this year and affect a broad range of programs, from early education to medical research.

Congress faces yet another round of these automatic spending cuts that would start on October 1.

Some interest groups immediately cried foul at the FAA fix.

Cynthia Pellegrini, an executive at March of Dimes, a nonprofit that advocates for the health of mothers and babies, said she was troubled by Congress acting on a case-by-case basis.

"Over the next several months we feel there are going to be significant impacts on women, children and families," Pellegrini said in an interview. "This may not be as visible as longer lines at the airport. You can't see that a child's belly is emptier because her family couldn't get food assistance."

The U.S. Travel Association on Friday said it appreciated Congress' swift action, but said it was concerned that funds may be diverted from critical infrastructure projects.

"At a time when we should be modernizing our infrastructure to improve efficiency, capacity and U.S. global competitiveness, sequestration-related issues should not be solved on the backs of airports," the group said in a statement.

BAND-AID

Without the legislation, the FAA said it would have to furlough 47,000 employees for up to 11 days through September 30 in order to save $637 million that is required by the sequestration.

Of those 47,000 workers, almost 15,000 are full-time air traffic controllers or trainees.

While supporting the legislation, the White House on Friday said it falls short of broader action needed to address sequestration. "It will be good news for America's traveling public if Congress spares them these unnecessary delays," White House spokesman Carney said in a statement.

Carney said lawmakers need to take additional steps to alleviate the impact felt beyond the airline industry from the cuts, such as among poorer elderly people, defense industry workers and others brought on by sequestration.

"Ultimately, this is no more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester's mindless across-the-board cuts," he said.

Transportation officials have made other cuts to their budget but furloughs of air traffic controllers began this week, prompting traveler backlash at major hubs like those in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta.

On Friday morning, departing flights at Newark Liberty International Airport were delayed more than an hour and 15 minutes, and Boston's Logan Airport had departure delays of more than 30 minutes, both due to staffing, the FAA said. Teterboro airport in New Jersey, which handles many corporate jets, also was experiencing delays of more than 90 minutes due to staffing.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Doug Palmer, Susan Heavey, Karen Jacobs and Alwyn Scott; Writing by Karey Van Hall; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Alabama Senate passes bill tightening rules for abortion clinics

By Verna Gates

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (Reuters) - The Alabama Senate passed an abortion bill on Tuesday critics say would limit access to the procedure with stricter requirements for clinics that provide it.

The Senate passed the bill on a vote of 22-10, after the House passed a similar bill in February. A committee will reconcile the two bills before the proposed legislation goes to the Alabama Governor, Dr. Robert Bentley, who is expected to sign it into law.

A similar bill in Mississippi is threatening to close the state's lone abortion clinic, as a federal judge ponders its future after the clinic filed a lawsuit. The Alabama bill follows passage of new anti-abortion laws in North Dakota and Arkansas in the past month.

The Alabama bill, called The Women's Health and Safety Act, would mandate that an Alabama-licensed physician be present at every abortion and those doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

Most clinics hire out-of-town physicians to provide abortion procedures and partner with local doctors who have hospital admitting privileges to provide follow-up care.

Critics say the bill would make it difficult or impossible for the clinics to do business.

"This legislation will make it harder to access health care, which will put women's health in danger," said Planned Parenthood Southeast Vice President of Public Policy Nikema Williams, following the vote to pass the bill.

The bill would also require reporting the name of the baby's father to law enforcement if the abortion is performed on a minor less than 16 years of age.

Alabama has four remaining abortion clinics, since the clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph lost its license to operate on May 18, 2012. Rudolph, who killed two people and injured 150 others in a series of bombings in the late 1990s, is incarcerated in the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, an independent and one of Alabama's five women senators, said she opposed abortion but expressed fear that the bill was unconstitutional and would attract a lawsuit.

"Upholding the Constitution is a very serious matter, as is putting life at stake," said Smith. "Women will resort to backroom procedures and taking their own lives."

State Sen. Linda Coleman, a Democrat, cited the relative safety of abortion procedures, with two deaths in Alabama reported last year resulting from procedures.

"And how many fatalities for the unborn child?" retorted the bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Scott Beason.

While Beason touted the bill as a safety measure, opponents called it an attempt to limit the rights of women. Two hundred people gathered around the capitol at a mid-day rally to protest the law.

"You don't have any business in my home, in my bedroom or in my body," said Coleman.

Lawmakers voted down a proposed amendment that would have prohibited hospitals from denying admitting privileges to abortion doctors solely because they performed the procedures.

Lawmakers in several states have passed new restrictions on abortion rights in the past two years, including laws approved in the last month in North Dakota and Arkansas that are seen as direct new challenges to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in 1973.

North Dakota in late March became the first state to approve a ban on most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy, and the first to ban abortions solely because of fetal genetic anomalies.

(Reporting by Verna Gates; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Todd Eastham)

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