Tanzanian church blast kills one, wounds 57

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - A suspected bomb attack on a new Catholic church in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha killed at least one person and wounded dozens of others on Sunday, police said.

The Vatican's ambassador to Tanzania, Archbishop Francisco Montecillo Padilla, was attending the official opening of the church when the explosion occurred, but escaped unharmed.

If a bomb blast is proven, it will mark an escalation in sectarian tensions in east Africa's second biggest economy.

"Some kind of explosion went off at the church. It is believed to have been a bomb but we don't know what type of bomb it was," police spokesperson Advera Senso said.

One person was arrested after the blast, which killed a woman and wounded 57 other people, Senso said.

A Vatican embassy official said he had been in contact with Padilla. "He is personally fine," the official said.

Two Christian leaders were killed in Tanzania's semi-autonomous, predominantly Muslim islands of Zanzibar earlier this year and there have been attacks on Muslim leaders and mosques. Arusha lies near the snow-capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in a part of Tanzania that is predominantly Christian.

Bangladesh building-collapse toll tops 600

Death toll tops 600 in Bangladesh garment-factory-building collapse; 622 bodies now recovered

Associated Press -

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- More than 600 bodies have been recovered from the garment-factory building that collapsed well over a week ago, police said Sunday as the grim recovery work continued in one of the worst industrial accidents ever.

Police said Sunday night that the death toll had reached 622. Well over 200 bodies have been recovered since Wednesday, when authorities said only 149 people had been listed as missing. The stench of decomposing bodies remains amid the broken concrete of the eight-story Rana Plazabuilding, and it is anyone's guess how many victims remain to be recovered.

The April 24 disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been fewindustrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. It surpassed long-ago garment-industry disasters such as New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in 1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that same year that killed 112.

An architect whose firm designed the building said Sunday that it had not been designed to handle heavy industrial equipment, let alone the three floors that were later illegally added. The equipment used by the five garment factories that occupied Rana Plaza included huge generators that were turned on shortly before the building crumbled.

Masood Reza, an architect with Vastukalpa Consultants, said the building was designed in 2004 as a shopping mall and not for any industrial purpose.

"We designed the building to have three stories for shops and another two for offices. I don't know how the additional floors were added and how factories were allowed on the top floors," Reza said.

"Don't ask me anything else. This is now a sensitive issue," Reza said before hanging up.

Government officials say substandard building materials, combined with the vibration of the heavy machines used by the factories, led to the collapse.

The building developed cracks a day before the collapse and the owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, called engineer Abdur Razzak Khan to inspect it. Khan appeared on television that night and said he told Rana the building should be evacuated.

Police also issued an evacuation order, but witnesses say that hours before the collapse, Rana told people that the building was safe and garment factory managers told their workers to go inside.

Rana has been arrested is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work, crimes punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more serious crimes will be added.

Khan was arrested as well. Police said he worked as a consultant to Rana when the three illegal floors were added.

The government promised to make the garment industry safer after the November garment factory fire that killed 112 people, saying it would inspect factories for safety and pull the licenses of those that failed. That plan has yet to be implemented.

Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry supplies retailers around the world and accounts for about 80 percent of the impoverished country's exports. The collapse has raised strong doubts about retailers' claims that they could ensure worker safety through self-regulation.

Bangladesh is popular as a source of clothing largely because of its cheap labor. The minimum wage for a garment worker is $38 a month, after being nearly doubled this year following violent protests by workers. According to the World Bank, the per capita income in Bangladesh was about $64 a month in 2011.

The European Union has said it could restrict Bangladesh's access to its crucial market if it fails to ensure that basic labor standards are enforced.

"We are going to make it very clear to the Bangladeshi government that they have to take immediate action with a precise timeline," EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht told Sky News. Otherwise, he said, the EU will conduct an investigation that could lead to trade restrictions.

"Not because we want to hurt Bangladesh, but because what is happening is simply not acceptable," he said. "From a humane point of view, we cannot afford that and we have to do something about it."

Syrian rebels enter northern air base

Thousands of leftists protest Hollande's 1st year

Tens of thousands of leftists march in Paris to denounce president's policies as austerity

Associated Press -

PARIS (AP) -- Tens of thousands of supporters of leftist parties marched through central Paris on Sunday to express disappointment with President Francois Hollande's first year in power, criticizing the leader for reneging on his promises to rein in the world of finance and enact economic stimulus.

Hollande, a Socialist, rose to the presidency last May, promising to spare France the austerity measures imposed elsewhere in Europe. And the French government has largely avoided the deep spending cuts, big tax hikes and the wide-ranging reforms of many of its neighbors.

Instead, it has nibbled around the edges of its deficit, cutting 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in spending and increasing taxes, largely on the rich, by 20 billion euros. That's relatively little for a country with 2 trillion euro economy of which 57 percent is government spending.

Still, France's economy has continued to deteriorate, with growth stagnating and unemployment rising above 10 percent.

Leftists who took the streets on Sunday — largely from parties to the left of Hollande's mainstream Socialist Party — rejected the notion that Hollande had spared France a worse fate.

"Salaries are frozen. They continue to reduce hiring in the public sector," said Brigitte Blang, a 64-year-old teacher from eastern France. "We're waiting for true leftist policies. There's money in the coffers!"

Blang was among tens of thousands of people from around the country who gathered around Paris' iconic Place de la Bastille, named for the prison stormed by French revolutionaries in 1789. They carried signs that said, "Down with austerity," ''Out with finance, humans first" and "OUSTerity — finance should pay."

Paris police said 30,000 people showed up, although protest organizers said there were 180,000. After speeches, the crowd marched to another Paris square.

Several protesters acknowledged that they voted for Hollande a year ago — either simply to ensure the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy's defeat or because they had hope for his leadership.

Hollande's failure to keep the support of those on the far left protesting in Paris on Sunday while also angering the right —who think his economic reforms and budget cuts haven't gone far enough — has made him one the least popular presidents in modern French history. In a sign of how he is being squeezed from both sides, police said 15,000 people — largely right-leaning — gathered in another part of Paris on Sunday to protest the recent passage of a law legalizing gay marriage.

Hollande and his ministers have pleaded for more time to allow their policies to take hold.

On the one hand, France's reluctance to enact major budget cuts may seem prescient to some as many economists and politicians in Europe rethink the austerity programs demanded in exchange for bailouts. The effects of budget cuts and tax increases have been much more detrimental to growth than some expected, and the prolonged recession and high unemployment in many countries has begun to make those policies untenable.

But others note that France hasn't just shied away from budget cuts, it has also skimped on reforms. While Spain and Italy may be struggling more than France currently, both countries are also laying the groundwork for a strong, durable recovery, many economists say.

France, on the other hand, may be left behind when the rebound comes since it has only partially committed to labor market reforms. Many of its companies are still not competitive on the world stage, its government spending is still too high and Hollande's administration has only exacerbated the impression that France is a difficult place to do business. One of his ministers has had very public spats with Goodyear, ArcelorMittal and Yahoo in the past year.

Hollande has been trying to turn that reputation around, recently unveiling a raft of tax cuts for entrepreneurs. But that announcement is a good example of the bind he finds himself in: Those very tax cuts were held up as a call to arms for Sunday's protest. And many deplored what they see as a stranglehold on power exercised by big companies and banks.

"Our march ... is a protest against the coup d'etat of the world of finance that is happening throughout Europe," said Jean-Luc Melenchon, the head of a grouping of leftist political parties known as the Left Front.

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