|
(Continued from page 28)
Families of many Bangladesh factory fire victims still waiting for promised compensation
• DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- When fire ravaged a Bangladeshi garment factory, killing 112 workers, dozens of their families did not even have a body to bury because their loved ones' remains were burned beyond recognition. Two months later, the same families have yet to receive any of the compensation they were promised -- not even their relatives' last paychecks.
• An official with the country's powerful garment industry said DNA tests must first be conducted to confirm the losses of more than 50 families. He would not say why the families have not even received the wages their relatives had earned before the Nov. 24 blaze.
• Many of the families desperately need money after losing their primary breadwinners in the fire at the Tazreen factory, which made clothes for Wal-Mart, Disney and other Western brands.
• The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, a foreign supplier and the government promised to give the families of the dead 600,000 takas ($7,500) each, finance the education of the dead workers' children and pay the November salaries of both dead and surviving factory workers.
• "I have got nothing. Nobody is saying anything," said Ansar, who uses one name and who lost his wife and daughter in the fire.
• ___
Fontana, Calif., school police get semiautomatic rifles in controversial safety program
• FONTANA, Calif. (AP) -- The high-powered semiautomatic rifles recently shipped to school police in this Southern California city look like they belong on a battlefield rather than in a high school, but officials here say the weapons could help stop a massacre like the one that claimed the lives of 26 students and educators in Connecticut just weeks ago.
• Fontana Unified School District police purchased 14 of the Colt LE6940 rifles last fall, and they were delivered the first week of December -- a week before the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Over the holiday break, the district's 14 school police officers received 40 hours of training on the rifles. Officers check them out for each shift from a fireproof safe in the police force's main office.
• Fontana isn't the first district to try this. Other Southern California districts also (Continued on page 30)
|
|
