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A building housing several factories making clothing for European and American consumers collapsed into a deadly heap on Wednesday, killing at least 108 workers and injuring at least 1,000 people.  The catastrophe comes only five months after a horrific fire at a similar facility prompted leading multinational brands to pledge to work to improve safety in the country’s booming but poorly regulated garment industry.  (Photo: AM Ahad / AP via The New York Times; caption via The Times)
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A building housing several factories making clothing for European and American consumers collapsed into a deadly heap on Wednesday, killing at least 108 workers and injuring at least 1,000 people.  The catastrophe comes only five months after a horrific fire at a similar facility prompted leading multinational brands to pledge to work to improve safety in the country’s booming but poorly regulated garment industry.  (Photo: AM Ahad / AP via The New York Times; caption via The Times)

In the latest sign of heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang cut off a hotline between North and South Korea and said it had torn up the nations’ cease-fire accord, signed in 1953, after the U.S. and South Korea kicked off joint military drills at midnight.

The 11-day drill, dubbed “Key Resolve,” is an annual exercise involving more than 13,000 U.S. and South Korean troops who rehearse for a possible conflict in the region. Last week, a North Korean agency in charge of border affairs with the South announced it would void the armistice ending the Korean War and sever the phone link if the drills were carried out as planned.

North and South Korean officials normally exchange telephone calls twice a day via the hotline in the demilitarized zone separating the countries, calling around 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to mark the beginning and end of work hours. On Monday, South Korea’s Unification Ministry confirmed that attempts to contact the North by telephone at 9 a.m. had failed.

The Monday edition of the North Korean party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, announced the annulment of the cease-fire agreement and said the “time for the final showdown has arrived.” The state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea called the drill “the most blatant provocation” and said the area was now “without brakes to stop war.”

The Los Angeles Times, “North Korea Cuts Off Hotline, Says Cease-Fire Annulled”

AP: "Unlike many other Muslim royalties basking in grand palaces and opulent lifestyles, Sultan Jamalul Kiram III’s kingdom sits in a rundown two-story house in a poor Islamic community in Manila, the only hint of power and glory the title attached to his name. 'I’m the poorest sultan in the world,' the ailing Kiram, 74, told The Associated Press in an interview in his residence in Maharlika village in the Philippine capital. Although largely forgotten and dismissed as a vestige from a bygone era, Kiram’s sultanate, once based in the southern province of Sulu has sparked the biggest security crisis in Malaysia and the Philippines in decades -- early last month, he sent his younger brother with about 200 followers, dozens of them armed, by boat from southern Philippines to a village in Sabah state in neighboring Malaysia to claim the land the sultanate insists belongs to them."

Fascinating read.

A young woman who had been in critical condition since she was raped two weeks ago by a group of men who lured her onto a bus here died early Saturday, an official at the hospital in Singapore that was caring for her said.

The woman, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student whose rape on Dec. 16 had served as a reminder of the dangerous conditions women face in India, died “peacefully,” according to a statement by Dr. Kelvin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The woman, whose intestines were removed because of injuries caused by a metal rod used during the rape, has not been identified. She was flown to Singapore on Wednesday night after undergoing three operations at a local hospital.

“The patient had remained in an extremely critical condition,” the statement said, adding, “She was courageous in fighting for her life for so long against the odds but the trauma to her body was too severe for her to overcome.”

The police have arrested six people in connection with the attack, Indian officials said.

Revulsion and anger over the rape have galvanized India, where women regularly face sexual harassment and assault, and where neither the police nor the judicial system is seen as adequately protecting them. Angry protesters thronged central Delhi after the attack was made public and assembled in other major cities, demanding better protection from the police and better treatment over all for women. Some protesters and politicians have called for the death penalty for rapists.

Top officials now say that further change is needed.

“The emergence of women in public spaces, which is an absolutely essential part of social emancipation, is accompanied by growing threats to their safety and security,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a speech on Thursday. “We must reflect on this problem, which occurs in all states and regions of our country, and which requires greater attention.”

Activists and lawyers in India have long said that the police are insensitive when dealing with crimes against women. The result, they say, is that many women do not report cases of sexual violence.

India, which has more than 1.3 billion people, recorded 24,000 cases of rape last year, a figure that has increased by 25 percent in the past six years. On Thursday, Delhi government officials said they would register the names and photographs of convicted rapists on the Delhi police Web site, the beginning of a national registry for rapists.

The New York Times, “Woman Whose Gang Rape Galvanized India Dies.”

No words to express the anger and sadness.  

The shame of India.

Smoke rises from the devastation caused at the height of Typhoon Bopha in the coastal town of Boston, Davao Oriental in southern Philippines on Dec. 10. Typhoon Bopha killed 647 people and caused crop damage worth $210 million. The most intense storm to hit the Philippines this year wiped out about 90 percent of three coastal towns in Davao Oriental province and buried an entire town in neighboring Compostela Valley province under mud. (Photo: Erik De Castro / Reuters via NBC News)
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Smoke rises from the devastation caused at the height of Typhoon Bopha in the coastal town of Boston, Davao Oriental in southern Philippines on Dec. 10. Typhoon Bopha killed 647 people and caused crop damage worth $210 million. The most intense storm to hit the Philippines this year wiped out about 90 percent of three coastal towns in Davao Oriental province and buried an entire town in neighboring Compostela Valley province under mud. (Photo: Erik De Castro / Reuters via NBC News)

A fire inside a multi-story garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh killed at least 111 people.  Most of the workers inside the building died on the first and second floors, where there were not enough exits — and those that did exist did not open to the outside.  Bangladesh is the second largest clothes exporter after China, and has a notorious safety record; more than 500 workers have died in factory fires there since 2006.  (Photo: Abir Abdullah / EPA via The New York Times)
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A fire inside a multi-story garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh killed at least 111 people.  Most of the workers inside the building died on the first and second floors, where there were not enough exits — and those that did exist did not open to the outside.  Bangladesh is the second largest clothes exporter after China, and has a notorious safety record; more than 500 workers have died in factory fires there since 2006.  (Photo: Abir Abdullah / EPA via The New York Times)

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