Burmese Muslims given two-child limit

       The two-child policy will be mandatory in Buthidaung and Maundaw provinces, Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

Muslims in a province of Burma have been ordered not to have more than two children in an attempt by the government to stop Buddhist attacks on Muslims.

State officials said the two-child limit in the state of Rakhine would ease tensions between Buddhists and their Muslim Rohingya neighbours.

Local officials said the new measure was part of a policy that will also ban polygamy in two Rakhine townships that border Bangladesh and have the highest Muslim populations. The townships, Buthidaung and Maundaw, are about 95% Muslim.

The measure was enacted a week ago after a government-appointed commission investigating the violence issued proposals to ease tensions, which included family planning programs to stem population growth among minority Muslims, said Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing. The commission also recommended doubling the number of security forces in the volatile region.

"The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of the Rakhine (Buddhists)," Win Myaing said. "Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension."

I hardly know what to say. Is this not against human rights?

Bangladesh survivor Reshma Begum: I never dreamed I'd see daylight again

First came the collapse. At 9am, as the day's work started, a ripping, tearing sound, clouds of choking dust, the screams of colleagues and finally silence. Then came fire, rain, and 16 long days in the darkness under the rubble, surrounded by the decaying corpses of her friends and colleagues. On Friday came hope.

Through the morning, Reshma Begum, a seamstress who worked on the second floor of the Rana Plaza in a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, heard rescuers close by. But none heard her.

"I heard voices of the rescue workers. I kept hitting the wreckage with sticks and rods to attract their attention," she told reporters from a hospital bed.

At about 3pm, Abdur Razzaq, an army sergeant deployed to help search the 7,000 tonnes of rubble that was all that remained of the Rana Plaza, picked up the faint sound of metallic tapping. "I heard the sound and rushed towards the spot. I knelt down and heard a faint voice. 'Sir, please help me,' she cried," Razzaq told the Guardian.

The woman had been breathing through a pipe from inside the wreckage, Razzaq said, and had sustained no serious injury.

Bangladesh Plaza collapse: Primark says it will compensate families of killed and injured

The death toll from the factory building collapse in Bangladesh could reach as much as 1,400, it emerged today.

As many as 900 workers are still missing six days after the reinforced concrete of Rana Plaza in Savar, near Dhaka, crumbled around them.

Around 3,000 workers - mainly young women who made cheap clothes for the likes of Primark and Matalan - had gone to work in the eight-storey building last Wednesday morning, despite huge cracks appearing in the walls the day before.

The collapse was the deadliest disaster to hit Bangladesh's garment industry, which is worth £13billion a year and supplies High Street retailers throughout the West.

Grim search: Around 3,000 workers - mainly young women - had gone to work in the eight-storey building last Wednesday morning, despite huge cracks appearing in the walls the day before

Bosses at high street giant Primark have said they will pay compensation to the families of their workers who were killed and injured in the accident.

The budget clothing chain occupied a floor of the eight-storey building, and some of the workers injured and killed in the incident worked for a company that supplied the brand.

Last survivor of Primark factory collapse in Bangladesh burns to death

The last survivor of Bangladesh's devastating Primark factory collapse burned to death after rescuers sparked a fire with the very power tools they were using to free her, it has emerged.

The unnamed woman, who had survived for five days since the garment factory caved in last Wednesday in the country's capital Dhaka, had captured the hearts of the millions of Bangladeshis watching the drama unfold on television.When most had given up hope of finding anyone alive in the rubble, a faint voice was heard echoing from the darkness, triggering a massive rescue effort to free her from the twisted mass of metal and concrete.

But the 11-hour battle to bring her to safety ended in tragedy when sparks from firefighters' cutting machines set light to surrounding debris, pumping acrid smoke into the cavity

As the flames and smoke grew, firefighters were forced to abandon the dig until the fire had been doused. Many were seen weeping among the rubble on television as news of her death filtered throughout the rescue operation.

Sad! Sad!

Bangladesh factory collapse: police detain owners, as death toll rises to 352

                                        Rescue workers carry out a survivor found 78 hours after the building collapsed

Police in Bangladesh have detained two factory owners for criminal negligence over the deaths of at least 352 workers at an eight-storey building that collapsed on Wednesday – a day after warnings had been given that it was unsafe.

Two engineers who had been involved in issuing building permits for the Rana Plaza complex in Savar, just north of Dhaka, were also being held. The owner of the building was being sought by police, who have put border authorities on alert and arrested his wife in an attempt to bring him out of hiding.

On Saturday around 30 survivors were found and police say that as many as 900 people remain missing, trapped dead and alive under the twisted steel and concrete, through which rescue teams were still searching last night using electric drills, shovels, crowbars and their bare hands. Anger at the collapse has sparked days of protests and clashes, with police on Saturday using teargas, water cannon and rubber bullets on demonstrators who burned cars.

In London, demonstrators gathered outside Primark's flagship store in Oxford Street after it emerged that the chain used a floor of the Savar building. A petition has been launched calling for Primark and other brands, including Matalan and Mango, which used the factories, to compensate the families of workers killed or injured.

Bangladeshi police fire tear gas and rubber bullets at anxious relatives as they stormed site of collapsed clothing factory

Tensions high: Rescue workers, army personnel and police run after they heard someone shouting that a building next to Rana Plaza is collapsing

Anxious: People gather in front of Rana Plaza building as rescue workers continue their operations

Bangladeshi police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at anxious relatives as they overcrowded the site of a Bangladeshi collapsed clothes factory building where nearly 300 people were killed. 

At the disaster scene exhausted teams of soldiers, firemen and volunteers continue to work through the mountain of mangled concrete and steel for a third day after staying on the job for a second straight night. 

Amid frustration about the slow pace of the efforts, thousands of anxious relatives stormed the site prompting police to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd, and leaving 50 injured. 

'We want to go inside the building and find our people now. They will die if we don't find them soon,' said Shahinur Rahman, whose mother is missing at the site where workers made cheap clothes for Primark.

Escape: Rescuers used massive strips of cloth as escape chutes from the textile factories to help the workers escape the devastation after the eight-storey building collapsed in Bangladesh

World: Bangladesh Factory Building Collapse Kills Nearly 100

An eight-storey block housing garment factories and a shopping center collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring hundreds more, officials said.Fire fighters and army personnel worked frantically through the day at the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka, to rescue people trapped in the rubble.

Television showed young women workers, some apparently semi-conscious, being pulled from the debris.One fireman told Reuters that about 2,000 people were in the building when the upper floors jolted down on top of each other.Bangladesh’s booming garment industry has been plagued by fires and other accidents for years, despite a drive to improve safety standards.

In November last year, 112 workers were killed in a blaze at the Tazreen factory in a nearby industrial suburb.