DHAKA: Bangladesh authorities yesterday shut down an eight-storey factory complex after cracks appeared in a wall, triggering panic among thousands of garment workers, police and officials said. The cracks were similar to those appeared in the nearby Rana Plaza factory complex before it collapsed in April, killing 1,129 people in the worst industrial disaster, the officials said. Kamrul Hasan Molla, chief official in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, said factory owners suspended production and inspectors had sealed off the building as a precaution. Cracks had appeared in the Rana Plaza one day before it collapsed, but the owner and factory management forced workers to return to duty, assuring them that it was safe, officials previously said.
New species of bird found
PHNOM PENH: A new species of bird with a distinctive orange-red coloured tuft of feathers on its head has been found in Cambodia’s capital city, conservationists said yesterday. The discovery of the tailorbird, or orthotomus chaktomuk, in Phnom Penh — and several other locations including a construction site just outside of the city of 1.5 million people — has astounded conservationists. “The discovery of an undescribed bird species within the limits of a large populous city is extraordinary,” Simon Mahood of the Wildlife Conversation Society said. The small bird, which has a black-feathered throat and is the size of the wren, lives in thick, lowland scrub in Phnom Penh and other sites in the nearby floodplain, which the WCS said had kept it concealed for so long.
Malaysia police chief ‘guilty’
KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian court yesterday found the country’s police chief liable for the 2009 death in custody of a young ethnic Indian, the victim’s lawyer said, in a closely watched case that has highlighted the issue of police brutality. The decision by the High Court was a major blow to a police force already under fire over more than 200 such deaths since 2000 and could raise the spectre of further civil suits in similar cases. The family of the deceased, Ananthan Kugan, sued Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar, who was a state-level police chief at the time of the death, accusing him of a cover-up. AGENCIES
