Eighth grade pupils of School 32 in the village of Tulkun in Karakalpakstan’s Amudarya district are weeding cotton fields instead of studying on 10 May. School children in Karakalpakstan’s Amudarya district have been forced to weed cotton fields since early May. All schoolchildren beginning in the fourth grade have been forced to weed cotton fields, residents of Karakalpakstan’s Amudarya district report. Children are sent to cotton fields through schools. School principals and teachers are

The Obama administration may strip Bangladesh of import breaks following deadly accidents in the country’s textile industry, another sign of the pressure building on the southeast Asian nation to improve labour conditions. The move was prompted partly by a fire late last year that killed 112 people and gained momentum after the recent factory collapse that claimed more than 1,100 lives. Business, labour and advocacy groups are all struggling over how to respond to the April 24 incident — t

The Netherlands is to co-chair a group of donor countries, businesses and civil society groups tackling rampant safety issues in Bangladesh's textile sector, the foreign ministry said on Thursday. The move comes after over 1,100 people died in a factory collapse in Bangladesh in April, prompting top Western retailers and global trade unions to promise to improve shocking factory conditions. The Netherlands is giving nine million euros ($13 million) that together with funds from the textile se

File photo It’s a testament to globalization that the death of at least 1,127 people three weeks ago at the Rana Plaza garment plant continues to outrage Americans. Seen from the USA, Bangladesh looks like one giant ongoing human tragedy. Poverty is extreme, wages paid at the factories that make clothes to be sold in richer nations are pitiful, and working conditions in them are hazardous. In November, 112 people died in a garment factory fire. Last week, eight lives were claimed in a fire

British fashion label Alexander McQueen has unveiled a new-look website, which not only has a “more cohesive vision and clearer navigation” but also offers shipping to almost 100 different countries. Previously, the McQueen website only offered delivery to around 30 different destinations, with the redesign the brand is expanding its global reach to include Australasia, Asia, UAE, Russia, South, Central and North America as well as additional countries in Europe. The shipping expansion coincid

Photography by Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images When Angelina Jolie announced her preventive double mastectomy in yesterday’s New York Times, the almost-instant reactions were unanimous: Jolie was praised for her courage in both having the surgery and opening up to the public about it. Today that openness has continued, with Jolie’s doctor at the Pink Lotus Breast Center posting further details about the decision making process and medical procedures the actress undertook. It is by far the most

The Cannes Film Festival kicked off today, and if the celebrity red carpet gowns we've seen on day one are any indication we're in for a festival of fantastic, OMG-worthy gowns. Now this is how you do major glitz and glam, ladies. Carey Mulligan, star of that tiny little film you may have heard of (The Great Gastby, duh), chose a blush satin Dior couture gown for the film's premiere. It's a little reminiscent of a gown Gwyneth Paltrow has worn in the past but beautiful none the less.

Auction prices rose fairly substantially in local currency terms this week. The Australian Wool Exchange’s (AWEX) Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) increased by 3.0%, to 1,022 Australian cents per kilo, clean. However, in US dollar terms, the Indicator actually declined by 0.5%, to 1,010 US cents per kilo.Concern over projections of a larger-than-expected deficit in the local economy and of the potential implications for trade with China of slower growth in that economy, along with strength in the

The value-added textile sector has drawn Mian Nawaz Sharif’s attention to the export of cotton yarn, the sorely needed raw material of the textile sector, at throwaway prices. In a letter to the incoming prime minister, Javed Bilwani, coordinator of the value-added textile sector, said Pakistan’s entire textile sector was itself in urgent need of cotton yarn. “Only value-added fine count cotton yarn should be allowed to be exported with monitoring of the price which should not be lowe

The necessary reforms in the labour law will soon see daylight. Although quite late, the chapter has finally been opened. It is a bitter truth that the unfortunate deaths of more than one thousand garments workers at the Savar have accelerated the reform process. Provision for group insurance and gratuity facilities will be provided for industrial workforce, particularly in the garment sector. One wonders why it took such a long time. Was there an unholy alliance between the factory owners and