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BANGLADESH

Red Cross sends aid to freezing berry pickers

Bangladeshi berry pickers working in the woods of northern Sweden received warm clothes from the Red Cross on Friday as temperatures dropped to just above zero.

Published: 21 August 2010 11:55 CEST

The aid packages, consisting of everything from long johns to coats and shoes, were sent to the berry pickers’ camp in Bräcke, 600 km north of Stockholm, in response to a call for help from the guest workers who were ill-prepared for near freezing night time and early morning temperatures.

Red Cross consultant Ylva de Val Olsson told local newspaper Länstidningen Östersund it was very unusual for the aid organization to send aid within Sweden’s borders. But she added that the organization had no hesitation when the berry pickers requested humanitarian assistance.

In a summer that has seen several disputes over wages and conditions with foreign berry pickers across Sweden, the Red Cross worker expressed frustration at conditions in Bräcke.

“I think the situation is just as wretched every year for the berry pickers who come here. A lot of them are treated very badly,” she told the newspaper.

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BANGLADESH

France’s Auchan sued over Bangladesh disaster

Three organizations said on Thursday they had filed a judicial complaint against French supermarket giant Auchan in the first such case in Europe in the wake of the deadly Bangladesh factory disaster a year ago.

Published: 25 April 2014 08:28 CEST
France's Auchan sued over Bangladesh disaster
People wear funeral shrouds and lie on the ground as they take part in a protest marking the first anniversary of the Rana Plaza building disaster on April 24, 2014, in Paris. Photo: Lionel Bonaventur

Auchan says it had never placed any orders at the Rana Plaza garment factory in Dhaka which collapsed on April 24 last year after a catastrophic structural failure, leaving 1,000 people dead.

But the three lobby groups, in a complaint filed with a public prosecutor in France, accused Auchun of misleading customers about working conditions overseas and claim that an investigation found labels from the chain's "In Extenso" range in the rubble.

Sherpa, a non profit organisation for the "victims of economic crimes", Peuples Solidaires (People's Solidarity), and the Ethique sur l'etiquette (Ethics on Labels) collective, claim a number of witnesses – including some in Bangladesh – are available to provide evidence, and have called for the prosecutor to carry out a preliminary investigation as soon as possible.

They accuse Auchan of "misleading French consumers on working conditions in the places where its products are manufactured".

The collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza killed 1,138 workers and left more than 2,000 injured.

The tragedy, one of the world's worst garment factory disasters, highlighted poor safety and appalling working conditions at the factory

Auchan, which operates in more than a dozen countries and had sales of over 48 billion euros ($66 billion) last year, said it did not wish to comment on a complaint that it had not yet seen.

But in a statement to AFP it said: "We never sent orders to Rana Plaza and there was no direct, or indirect, link between Auchan and the businesses on the site".

The company said it had made "a number of changes" in response to the disaster, including signing an agreement with 158 international companies which aims to improve the safety of textile factory workers in Bangladesh.

It has also launched an action plan against undeclared sub-contracting.

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