World News Quick Take

The garment industry wage board yesterday said it had agreed to raise the minimum wage for workers in the key export sector, following five days of protests and sporadic clashes. The nation is the world’s second-biggest garment exporter behind China, employing more than 4 million people making clothes for some of the world’s best-known brands. Thousands of garment workers have been protesting since Saturday, demanding higher pay, throwing bricks and erecting barricades as police fired tear gas to disperse crowds. Workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka (US$242.46), a 140 percent increase on the current 12,500 taka. The workers’ representative on the board, Babul Akter, said the representatives of factory owners have agreed to a wage hike.

Garment workers walk past members of the Border Guard Bangladesh during a protest over wages in Gazipur yesterday.

Photo: AFP

SPAIN

Sanchez reshuffles Cabinet

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday said First Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Cuerpo would provisionally run the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility after Oscar Puente’s resignation over two deadly high-speed train crashes this year. Puente’s move six days after this year’s second deadly train crash has left the ruling Socialists fighting an election campaign without one of their most combative, but also polarizing, voices. In a brief televised address, Sanchez praised Puente for his political dignity, saying his decision helped the country regain confidence in the rail system. Puente surprised lawmakers by quietly announcing he was stepping down on Tuesday night following a tense four-hour grilling by lawmakers from a caretaker parliament body, in which most parties demanded he face responsibility for the two rail disasters that have killed 115 people combined.

THAILAND

Five Uighurs face deportation

Five Uighurs detained since 2014 are subject to Chinese arrest warrants, the kingdom’s security chief said yesterday, adding that a court would decide if they would be returned to China. Human rights groups have raised concerns about the men after two of them were pardoned last month. They are among more than 300 Uighurs who fled China and were held in Thailand in 2014. Many have been gradually transferred — one group to Turkey in 2015 and others to China in 2015 and last year. The five were jailed for trying to escape immigration detention in 2020. Of that group, the two pardoned remain in custody awaiting deportation, a rights campaigner and an official said last week. “These five have arrest warrants in China and they have no refugee status,” National Security Council Secretary-General Chaipruak Doungprapat told reporters. He said that if China requests their extradition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would make an assessment and a court would then decide.

ISRAEL

Authorities reject fraud claim

The Central Elections Committee yesterday said it has found no fraud in last week’s vote, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to discredit the results. Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that Arab-led parties had “stolen” the election, possibly with foreign assistance. The results showed Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist bloc losing its majority, while Arab-led parties made substantial gains. “The review found no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results,” the committee said in a statement.