Thursday 12 September 2013

YONGBYON RESTARTED

BBC News

NORTH KOREA'S YONGBYON REACTOR 'NEARING OPERATION'

Steam has been seen rising from North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility, suggesting that the reactor has been restarted, a US institute says.

BBC News, September 12, 2013

The colour and volume of the steam indicated that the reactor was in or nearing operation, the institute said.

Pyongyang vowed to restart facilities at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex in April, amid high regional tensions.

The reactor can produce plutonium, which North Korea could use to make nuclear weapons.

Analysts believe North Korea already possesses between four and 10 nuclear weapons, based on plutonium produced at the Yongbyon reactor prior to mid-2007, when the facility was closed down.

(...) [article here]

Tuesday 3 September 2013

FACTORIES IN BANGLADESH

Time

HELL FOR LEATHER: BANGLADESH’S TOXIC TANNERIES RAVAGE LIVES AND ENVIRONMENT

Jason Motlagh / Dhaka

Time, September 3, 2013

Inside the factory, shirtless workers stretch freshly dyed sheets of goat leather across industrial drying racks. Sleek and durable, the leather is in great demand at fashion houses from Italy to Hong Kong, feeding a global appetite for Bangladesh-made clothing that has boosted the country’s export earnings more than 20% in the past year. But outside, under the glaring sun, it’s clear who’s paying the price. Toxic runoff, the color of crude oil, is discharged into open gutters that course their way through jam-packed streets and makeshift housing, en route to city waterways. Seated by one of the gutters on his tea break is a gaunt Saddam Hossein — he is 23, but looking 10 years older and his hands are scarred from processing chemicals. “It’s hard labor,” he says. “But what else can I do?”

Bangladesh has become synonymous with cheap, ready-made garments and — in the wake of April’s Rana Plaza disaster — the appalling cost of fast fashion. Less notorious but no less grim is its booming leather industry, where workers and environment are degraded to sustain a billion-dollar business. Nearly all the country’s 206 tanneries are concentrated in one area — Hazaribagh, a cramped, filthy neighborhood in southwestern Dhaka, the sprawling capital.

(...) [article here]