Bangladesh toll 547; search becomes more gruesome

A young lady wails over the phone as she tells her family that she had identified one of the many bodies at a morgue to be her relative, Saturday, May 4, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the aftermath of a building collapse that killed more than 530 people, Bangladesh's garment manufacturers may face a choice of reform or perish. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A young lady wails over the phone as she tells her family that she had identified one of the many bodies at a morgue to be her relative, Saturday, May 4, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the aftermath of a building collapse that killed more than 530 people, Bangladesh's garment manufacturers may face a choice of reform or perish. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

People look at portraits of missing garment workers from the collapse of a garment factory building plastered on the doors of a school-turned-morgue Saturday, May 4, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll in the accident rose to more than 530 on Saturday, a day after the country's finance minister downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, saying he didn't think it was "really serious." (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A young woman covers her nose to block out the stench from rotting bodies at a morgue where bodies recovered from the garment factory collapse are kept for identification Saturday, May 4, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll in the accident rose to more than 530 on Saturday, a day after the country's finance minister downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, saying he didn't think it was "really serious." (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Workers at a school-turned-morgue place the body of a victim from last week's collapse of a garment factory building into a coffin, Saturday, May 4, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll in the accident rose to more than 530 on Saturday, a day after the country's finance minister downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, saying he didn't think it was "really serious." (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Workers at a school-turned-morgue place the body of a victim from last week's collapse of a garment factory building into a coffin, Saturday, May 4, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll in the accident rose to more than 530 on Saturday, a day after the country's finance minister downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, saying he didn't think it was "really serious." (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? Ten days after the horrifying collapse of a garment-factory building, life has become still more gruesome for crews working to recover bodies at the site. The death toll rose to 547 on Saturday and the stench of decaying flesh was sickening evidence that the work is not yet done.

Rescue workers said some bodies have deteriorated so badly that they have found bones without flesh. Since the April 24 collapse in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, high temperatures have generally been 32 degrees C (90 degrees F) or above, and lows have rarely dipped below 27 C (80 F).

"The bodies are smelling. We are using air freshener to work here," said Mohibul Alam, a firefighter at the collapse scene. The odor of decay is overpowering just the same.

Bodies have decomposed beyond recognition, Alam said, but he added that some could still be identified because the victims' identification cards were found with them.

Some of the victims who had been closest to escaping appear to be among the last to be recovered. Only now have rescuers dug deep enough, using cranes and other equipment, to approach the stairs of the ground floor.

The official death toll from the collapse reached 547 Saturday and was expected to climb. The official number of missing has been 149 since Wednesday, though unofficial estimates are higher.

The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. It surpassed long-ago garment-industry disasters such as New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in 1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that same year that killed 112.

Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry supplies retailers around the world and accounts for about 80 percent of the impoverished country's exports. The collapse has raised strong doubts about retailers' claims that they could ensure worker safety through self-regulation.

Five garment factories operated in the Rana Plaza building that collapsed, and many brand labels have been found in the wreckage, but only two retailers, Britain's Primark and Canada's Loblaw Inc., have acknowledged that their clothes were being made there at the time. Loblaw's CEO has decried the "deafening silence" from what he said were more than two dozen other international retailers who used garment factories in the collapsed building.

Mainuddin Khandkar, the head of a government committee investigating the disaster, said Friday that substandard building materials, combined with the vibration of the heavy machines used by the five garment factories inside the Rana Plaza building, led to the horrific collapse. Because of a power outage, heavy generators were turned on about 15 minutes before the building fell, he said.

The building developed cracks a day before the collapse, and Rana Plaza owner Mohammed Sohel Rana called engineer Abdur Razzak Khan to inspect it. Khan appeared on television that night and said he told Rana the building should be evacuated.

Police also issued an evacuation order, but witnesses say that hours before the collapse, Rana told people that the building was safe and garment factory managers told their workers to go inside.

Rana has been arrested is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work, crimes punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more serious crimes will be added.

On Thursday, Khan was arrested as well, on a charge of negligence. Police said he worked as a consultant to Rana when three illegal floors were added to what was supposed to be a five-story building.

The Bangladesh High Court also has ordered the government to confiscate Rana's property and freeze the assets of the owners of the factories in Rana Plaza so the money can be used to pay the salaries of their workers.

Savar's mayor and another local official have been suspended in an apparent effort by higher levels of Bangladesh's government to fend off accusations that it is in part to blame for the tragedy because of weak oversight of the building's construction.

In New Delhi on Friday, Bangladesh Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, which is by far the country's biggest source of export income.

"The present difficulties ... well, I don't think it is really serious ? it's an accident," Muhith said. "And the steps that we have taken in order to make sure that it doesn't happen, they are quite elaborate and I believe that it will be appreciated by all."

The government made similar promises after the November garment factory fire that killed 112 people, saying it would inspect factories for safety and pull the licenses of those that failed. That plan has yet to be implemented.

Retailers have been drawn to Bangladesh as a source of clothing largely because of its cheap labor. The minimum wage for a garment worker is $38 a month, after being nearly doubled this year following violent protests by workers. According to the World Bank, the per capita income in Bangladesh was about $64 a month in 2011.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-04-AS-Bangladesh-Building-Collapse/id-ee5de4f84ea64dba9f98c923ec2d6767

g8 summit netanyahu aipac vanessa minnillo super tuesday epidemiology total eclipse of the heart

Analysis: Wall Street to Best Buy - Now, get out of China

By Dhanya Skariachan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Best Buy's move to exit Europe has many on Wall Street hoping the big box retailer does the same in China.

The company sold its stake in a European joint venture to Carphone Warehouse Group this week for less than half of what it paid five years ago. Despite the loss, investors welcomed the news and sent shares up to their highest level in a year.

Many are betting that the next move for the world's largest consumer electronics chain will be out of China, where it has struggled to fend off local rivals and failed to carve a niche in a cluttered market. That unit has also been without a leader for more than a month.

"They are really struggling in China, much more so than they were in Europe," said BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba, who predicted the company could divest its assets there later this year. "There are no strategic benefits to them being in China."

Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly said in a statement on Tuesday that the European deal "should not suggest any similar action" in other overseas markets, but he has emphasized since starting last fall that he wants to focus on the United States.

Best Buy declined to comment on whether it eventually would sell its Chinese operations, which accounted for only 3.5 percent of its sales in the most recent financial year. China contributed to 4.1 percent of annual sales in the prior year. Best Buy would not break out China's contributions to the bottom line.

The company told Reuters on Wednesday that it has hired a Chinese national to replace Nicolas Wang, who had been CEO of Best Buy's Five Star business but left in March. It plans to make the formal announcement soon. But the appointment may not be enough to win over support of the overseas business.

"I think that they would still be better off getting out of China," said Janney Capital Markets analyst David Strasser. "The less distraction they have in turning around the U.S. business, the better off they are."

Pulling out of China would leave Best Buy without access to one of the world's premiere growth opportunities.

But it would enable Best Buy to focus on the United States, something for which investors have lobbied. The move also could give the retailer more cash to invest in businesses with better growth prospects such as mobile and e-commerce.

"China has never been particularly profitable for them, and if they feel they can't make that happen, then of course it would be better to try to monetize that holding rather than for them to continue to lose money," said Jerry Bruni, portfolio manager of JV Bruni & Co, which owns Best Buy shares.

In 2012, Best Buy had 1.8 percent of the Chinese market, while local rivals Suning and Gome had 10.6 percent and 10.3 percent respectively, according to Euromonitor International.

STUGGLING IN CHINA

Best Buy went into China in 2006 by taking a majority stake in Nanjing-based retailer Jiangsu Five Star Appliance Co for $180 million. A few years later, it bought out the local company, and opened its own brand stores too.

The operation struggled from the beginning. During the U.S. recession, Best Buy's former management did not invest enough time integrating Five Star into Best Buy "primarily because the U.S. started to fall off a log" said Robert Willett, a former CEO of Best Buy International.

Best Buy and Five Star initially had higher costs because they had separate IT, finance and sourcing, said Willett, who retired from Best Buy in 2009.

Another problem was that the retailer's own-brand stores never adapted to the local market or succeeded in wooing the Chinese customer, who often shops on e-commerce sites like 360buy.com.

Chinese customers "are either going to get the best price online" or use that price to negotiate the best price in stores, said Franklin Yao, managing partner of Shanghai-based consulting firm SmithStreetSolutions.

The company also failed to customize its stores to the local market. For example, Best Buy had an equal number of washers and dryers on display, but many Chinese consumers consider dryers harmful to clothing and don't use them, making that a waste of floor space, said James Roy, a senior analyst with consulting firm China Market Research Group.

Two years ago, Best Buy shuttered its own-brand megastores to focus on Five Star, which is an established name and has smaller stores in cities where the Chinese middle class is emerging.

But its market share continued to fall, dropping 14.3 percent during the last five years, according to data from Euromonitor International, while local rival Suning boosted its share by 29.3 percent.

Best Buy would not be the first to leave China. Europe's largest electronics chain, Media Markt, closed its Chinese stores in March because of pricing pressures.

Last year, U.S. retailer Home Depot abandoned its big boxes in China and decided to focus on selling goods online in the world's most populous country.

Foreign retailers who have managed to stay have not had it easy in China, with some such as Britain's Tesco and Germany's Metro AG applying brakes to their Chinese expansion.

Some believe pulling out of China would enable Best Buy to focus on competing more effectively with Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Amazon.com Inc in the United States.

"If you don't control your core market, you don't control anything," said former Best Buy executive Willett.

(Reporting By Dhanya Skariachan in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Leslie Gevirtz)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-wall-street-best-buy-now-china-050555507.html

grand jury ozzie guillen fidel castro darvish george zimmerman website edmund fitzgerald uss enterprise white house easter egg roll 2012