Irregularities including theft and missing of goods at Carew & Co. (Bangladesh) Ltd, a traditional industry in the southwestern district of Chuadanga’s Darshana, have become a common phenomenon, thanks to the indifference of the authorities concerned. The mismanagement has apparently turned into a rule at the industry which is embroiled in ongoing issues of theft, particularly concerning foreign liquor. It also produces various alcoholic beverages along with sugar and vinegar. Despite the authorities forming probe committees and imposing temporary punishments on those found guilty, these offenders often return to their illicit activities shortly after, leading to the establishment of a racket. This situation continues even after the recent change in government following mass upsurge. Ahead of the Durga Puja, the syndicate has again become more active than ever as the demand for the liquor increases several times this time, said sources. On September 30, six bottles of foreign liquor were recovered from a toolbox of an electrician in the distillery department of the organization. Although the initial response was to downplay the incident until it became public knowledge. Read: Sugarcane threshing begins at Drashana's Carew & Co sugar mill  Last June, an allegation of missing 13,000 liters of DS spirit from the distillery department surfaced. Additionally, accusations of financial irregularities concerning the permanent hiring of 104 workers emerged in May, leading to legal action against several people, including the former Managing Director Mosharraf Hossain, Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) President Sabuj and General Secretary Masud respectively. The Carew & Co. (Bangladesh) Ltd is the only profitable state-owned sugar mill in the region, yet its alcohol production has become a significant source of profit. While law enforcement has made arrests related to the theft of alcohol, the company’s management appears largely indifferent to the issue. Recent police operations have intercepted several shipments of locally made and imported alcohol, leading to multiple arrests of Carew employees. Allegations suggest that labour unions have been complicit in enabling this syndicate, and some local politicians have provided protection for these operations, further entrenching the issue. Preferring anonymity, a worker of the organisation said thefts during the transportation of local liquor to various depots have been common, with drivers and workers sometimes colluding to facilitate these activities. Read more: Selling alcohol, Carew and Company earned a record Tk232.96 crore in 6 months Some workers wishing not to be named claimed that employees in the distillery department collaborate with labour union leaders to execute these thefts, which have reportedly increased during the current administration.  

Khulna District Chhatra Dal President Abdul Mannan has remained misding 48 hours after he was picked up from his house allegedly by detective police, his family said on Friday. On Wednesday afternoon, some people in plain clothes picked him up from his rented house in the Nirala residential area of the city, said his niece Munni Khatun. Countrywide blockade: Long-route bus services from Khulna suspended She said, “Eight men in plain clothes entered his rented house on Wednesday afternoon. They all had weapons. They picked up Mannan saying he would be released after questioning. We haven't been able to find him since then.” Meanwhile, Manna’s family members and Chhatra Dal leaders went to different police stations and DB offices in Khulna to find the whereabouts of Mannan, said Gazi Shahidul Islam, organising secretary of Khulna District Chhatra Dal. Khulna-Mongla rail line to be inaugurated on Nov 1 He said, “All those arrested before and after the blockade were sent to court within 7-8 hours. But the district Chhatra Dal president has not been sent to court even after 48 hours and that’s why we are concerned.” Hasan Al Mamun, the officer-in-charge of Khulna Sadar Police Station said there has been no arrest of anyone by the name of Abdul Mannan. Miscreants set BNP office on fire in Khulna Deputy Police Commissioner (DB) of Khulna, BM Nuruzzaman, also provided the same information.

Police recovered the bodies of a 40-year-old woman and her two children, with their hands tied up with a scarp, from Tirnoi River in Kashipur Kashidanga of Ranisankail upazila in Thakurgaon district on Wednesday,18 hours after they went missing. After 21 years, Thakurgaon silk factory set to resume production on August 3 The deceased were identified as Nasima, wife of Rahim Uddin and their  two children-- Shaon, 8 and Shafayet, 5. Local people spotted the bodies and informed police in the morning, said officer-in-charge of Ranisankail Police Station Gulfamul Islam. Later, police recovered the bodies from the Tirnoi River in the morning. Thakurgaon quack arrested for derogatory remarks against PM Hasina on Facebook Quoting family members, police said Nasima along with her two children went out of their house after a brawl with her husband on Tuesday evening and since then they remained missing. A general diary was lodged with Ranisankail Police Station. Bus runs over motorcyclist in Thakurgaon Police are investigating whether it is a case of suicide or murder, said the  OC.

Emergency workers uncovered more than 1,500 bodies in the wreckage of Libya's eastern city of Derna on Tuesday, and it was feared the toll could surpass 5,000 after floodwaters smashed through dams and washed away entire neighborhoods of the city. The startling death and devastation wreaked by Mediterranean storm Daniel pointed to the storm's intensity, but also the vulnerability of a nation torn apart by chaos for more than a decade. The country is divided by rival governments, one in the east, the other in the west, and the result has been neglect of infrastructure in many areas. In Iran, snap checkpoints and university purges mark the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini protests Outside help was only just starting to reach Derna on Tuesday, more than 36 hours after the disaster struck. The floods damaged or destroyed many access roads to the coastal city of some 89,000. Footage showed dozens of bodies covered by blankets in the yard of one hospital. Another image showed a mass grave piled with bodies. More than 1,500 corpses were collected, and half of them had been buried as of Tuesday evening, the health minister for eastern Libya said. At least one official put the death toll at more than 5,000. The state-run news agency quoted Mohammed Abu-Lamousha, a spokesman for the east Libya interior ministry, as saying that more than 5,300 people had died in Derna alone. Derna's ambulance authority said earlier Tuesday that 2,300 had died. But the toll is likely to be higher, said Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He told a U.N. briefing in Geneva via videoconference from Tunisia that at least 10,000 people were still missing. He said later Tuesday that more than 40,000 people have been displaced. The situation in Libya is "as devastating as the situation in Morocco," Ramadan said, referring to the deadly earthquake that hit near the city of Marrakesh on Friday night. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres conveyed his solidarity with the Libyan people and said the United Nations "is working with local, national and international partners to get urgently needed humanitarian assistance to those in affected areas," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The destruction came to Derna and other parts of eastern Libya on Sunday night. As the storm pounded the coast, Derna residents said they heard loud explosions and realized that dams outside the city had collapsed. Flash floods were unleashed down Wadi Derna, a river running from the mountains through the city and into the sea. Israel's PM pitches fiber optic cable idea to link Asia and the Middle East to Europe The wall of water "erased everything in its way," said one resident, Ahmed Abdalla. Videos posted online by residents showed large swaths of mud and wreckage where the raging waters had swept away neighborhoods on both banks of the river. Multi-story apartment buildings that once were well back from the river had facades ripped away and concrete floors collapsed. Cars lifted by the flood were left dumped on top of each other. Libya's National Meteorological Center said Tuesday it issued early warnings for Storm Daniel, an "extreme weather event," 72 hours before its occurrence, and notified all governmental authorities by e-mails and through media ... "urging them to take preventive measures." It said that Bayda recorded a record 414.1 millimeters (16.3 inches) of rain from Sunday to Monday. On Tuesday, local emergency responders, including troops, government workers, volunteers and residents dug through rubble looking for the dead. They also used inflatable boats to retrieve bodies from the water. Many bodies were believed trapped under rubble or had been washed out into the Mediterranean Sea, said eastern Libya's health minister, Othman Abduljaleel. "We were stunned by the amount of destruction ... the tragedy is very significant, and beyond the capacity of Derna and the government," Abduljaleel told The Associated Press on the phone from Derna. Red Crescent teams from other parts of Libya also arrived in Derna on Tuesday morning but extra excavators and other equipment had yet to get there. Flooding often happens in Libya during rainy season, but rarely with this much destruction. A key question was how the rains were able to burst through two dams outside Derna – whether because of poor maintenance or sheer volume of rain. Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist and meteorologist at Leipzig University, said in a statement that Daniel dumped 440 millimeters (15.7 inches) of rain on eastern Libya in a short time. "The infrastructure could probably not cope, leading to the collapse of the dam," he said, adding that human-induced rises in water surface temperatures likely added to the storm's intensity. Local authorities have neglected Derna for years. "Even the maintenance aspect was simply absent. Everything kept being delayed," said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow specializing in Libya at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. Russia attacks a Ukrainian port before key grain deal talks between Putin and Turkey's president Factionalism also comes into play. Derna was for several years controlled by Islamic militant groups. Military commander Khalifa Hifter, the strongman of the east Libya government, captured the city in 2019 only after months of tough urban fighting. The eastern government has been suspicious of the city ever since and has sought to sideline its residents from any decision-making, said Harchaoui. "This mistrust might prove calamitous during the upcoming post-disaster period," he said. Hifter's eastern government based in the city of Benghazi is locked in a bitter rivalry with the western government in the capital of Tripoli. Each is backed by powerful militias and by foreign powers. Hifter is also backed by Egypt, Russia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, while the west Libya administration is backed by Turkey, Qatar and Italy. Still, the initial reaction to the disaster brought some crossing of the divide. The Tripoli-based government of western Libya sent a plane with 14 tons of medical supplies and health workers to Benghazi. It also said it had allocated the equivalent of $412 million for reconstruction in Derna and other eastern towns. Airplanes arrived Tuesday in Benghazi carrying humanitarian aid and rescue teams from Egypt, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Egypt's military chief of staff met with Hifter to coordinate aid. Germany, France and Italy said they also were sending rescue personnel and aid. It was not clear how quickly the aid could be moved to Derna, 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Benghazi, given conditions on the ground. Ahmed Amdourd, a Derna municipal official, called for a sea corridor to deliver aid and equipment. President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday that the United States is sending emergency funds to relief organizations and coordinating with the Libyan authorities and the U.N. to provide additional support. "Jill and I send our deepest condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones in the devastating floods in Libya," he said. The storm hit other areas in eastern Libya, including the town of Bayda, where about 50 people were reported dead. The Medical Center of Bayda, the main hospital, was flooded and patients had to be evacuated, according to footage shared by the center on Facebook. Other towns that suffered included Susa, Marj and Shahatt, according to the government. Hundreds of families were displaced and took shelter in schools and other government buildings in Benghazi and elsewhere in eastern Libya. Northeast Libya is one of the country's most fertile and green regions. The Jabal al-Akhdar area — where Bayda, Marj and Shahatt are located — has one of the country's highest average annual rainfalls, according to the World Bank.

A landslide struck a rural district in China's southwestern Sichuan province on Sunday morning, killing 14 people and leaving five others missing, authorities said. The mountainous region has seen rainfall lasting weeks, saturating the top soil. More than 180 people were mobilized to help find those buried under the debris in Sichuan's Leshan county, with the search ongoing into the afternoon, the Communist Party committee of Jinhouke district said on its social media account. With its humid, rainy climate, southwestern China is prone to landslides, especially in areas where there has been large-scale shifting of land due to farming, deforestation or engineering projects.

The search for four people including a groom, his mother and two others, who went missing after a trawler carrying a wedding party capsized in Tetulia River in Patuakhali’s Dashmina upazila on Friday, resumed on Saturday for the second day. Those who remain missing were identified as the groom Rabbi Hawladar, 20, son of Manir Hawladar of Guli Auliapur; his mother, Selina Akter, 40; Khadiza, 5, daughter of Dhalu Hawladar; and Mansura, 8, daughter of Belal Munshi. Local administration, three units of Fire Services and Navy jointly started conducted the rescue operation from Saturday morning, said Anwar Hossain, leader of Dashmina Fire Service Station. Also Read: Woman drowns, 4 others go missing as trawler capsizes in Patuakhali Nafisa Naz Nia, Dashmina Upazila Nirbahi Officer, said the local administration has taken the matter with utmost importance to rescue the missing persons. Earlier, on Friday, a woman was dead and four went missing when the trawler carrying a wedding party capsized in the river during a storm while returning with the bride. Bride Sumaiya and 14 others were on the trawler. The deceased was identified as Lipi Begum, 30, wife of Dhalu Hawladar of Uttar Ronogopaldi in the upazila.  

Eight people remained missing after the building they lived in exploded and collapsed early Sunday near the port of Marseille, leaving mounds of burning debris hampering rescue operations, officials said. More than 100 firefighters worked against a ticking clock to extinguish flames deep within the rubble of the five-story building, but more than 17 hours later “the situation is not yet stabilized,” Marseille Prosecutor Dominique Laurens said at an evening news conference. Earlier in the day, officials had thought that between four and 10 people may have been trapped. Laurens said police have yet to confirm the apparent disappearance of a ninth person who lived in a next-door building. Five people suffered minor injuries from the collapse, which occurred shortly before 1 a.m. Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan said two buildings that share walls with the one that collapsed were partially brought down before one later caved in, another complication in the search and rescue operation. The buildings were among evacuated structures. Drones and probes have been used to examine the scene for signs of life. The burning debris was too hot for dogs in the firefighters' canine team to work until Sunday afternoon, though smoke still bothered them, the prosecutor said. “We cannot intervene in a very classic way,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said during a morning visit to the site. He said the fire was burning a few meters under the mounds of debris and that both water and foam represent a danger to victims’ survival. An investigation has been opened for involuntary injury, at least initially sidestepping possible criminal intentions. A gas explosion was among the tracks to check, said Laurens, the prosecutor. But the start of the probe also was limited by the heat of the blaze. “The flames weren't pink. They were blue,” Payan said. Firefighters, with the help of urban rescue experts, worked through the night and all day Sunday in a slow race against time. The delicate operation aimed to keep firefighters safe, prevent further harm to people potentially trapped in the rubble and not compromise vulnerable buildings nearby, already partially collapsed. Some 30 buildings in the area were evacuated, Darmanin said. Lauren, the prosecutor, said that firefighters “are really in a complicated situation, dangerous for them.” Work is progressing but with safety precautions, she said. “We heard an explosion ... a very strong explosion which made us jump, and that's it,” said Marie Ciret, who was among those evacuated. “We looked outside the window at what was happening. We saw smoke, stones, and people running.” The building that collapsed is located on a narrow street less than a kilometer (a half-mile) from Marseille's iconic old port, adding to an array of difficulties for firefighters and rescue workers. The prosecutor said the building and those next door “are not at all substandard buildings.” Robots were reportedly being deployed. A crane was brought in to clear rubble and firefighters were at one point seen in TV video hosing parts of the debris from a window in a nearby apartment as plumes of smoke rose skyward. “We’re trying to drown the fire while preserving the lives of eventual victims under the rubble,” Lionel Mathieu, commander of the Marseille fire brigade, said during a televised briefing. “Firefighters are gauging minute by minute the best way to put out the fire,” Payan, the mayor, said. “We must prepare ourselves to have victims,” he said grimly. The collapsed building is located in an old quarter in the center of France’s second-largest city. The noise from the explosion resounded in other neighborhoods. Nearby streets were blocked off. French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne both tweeted their thoughts for people affected and thanks to the firefighters. In 2018, two buildings in the center of Marseille collapsed, killing eight people. Those buildings were poorly maintained — not the case with the building that collapsed Sunday after an explosion, the interior minister said.

An explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania Friday killed two people and left nine people missing, authorities said. Several other people were injured by the explosion at the R.M. Palmer Co. plant, said West Reading Borough Police Department Chief of Police Wayne Holben, who did not confirm the exact number of injured. The explosion just before 5 p.m. sent a plume of black smoke into the air, destroying one building and damaging a neighboring building that included apartments. “It’s pretty leveled,” West Reading Borough Mayor Samantha Kaag said of the explosion site. “The building in the front, with the church and the apartments, the explosion was so big that it moved that building four feet forward." Also Read: Coroner: 7 dead in tornado that ripped through US South The cause of the blast in the community about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia was under investigation, Holden told reporters. Eight people were taken to Reading Hospital Friday evening, Tower Health spokeswoman Jessica Bezler said. Two people were admitted in fair condition and five were being treated and would be released, she said in an email. One patient was transferred to another facility, but Bezler provided no further details. Also Read: US Embassy expects investigation of alleged assault on journo Zulkarnain's brother Kaag said people were asked to move back about a block in each direction from the site of the explosion but no evacuations were ordered. Dean Murray, the borough manager of West Reading Borough, said some residents were displaced from the damaged apartment building. Kagg said borough officials were not in immediate contact with officials from R.M. Palmer, which Murray described as “a staple of the borough.” The company's website says it has been making “chocolate novelties” since 1948 and now has 850 employees at its West Reading headquarters.

Police on Sunday recovered the body of a man from Sakdirampur village in Chandpur's Faridganj upazila, four days after he went missing. The deceased was identified as Sohel Bepari, 30, son of Fazlu Bepari of the Dokanghar area of Chandpur Sadar upazila. Abdur Rashid, officer-in-charge (OC) of Sadar Model Police Station, said Sohel Bepari went missing on Wednesday night. His wife Josna Begum lodged a general diary at Chandpur Model Police Station on Sunday (February 5). Later, police detained Sohel's friends Shahadat Hossain, 30, and Zakir Hossain, 42, in this connection. Based on the information given by the detainees, police recovered the body of Sohel from a bush behind the Baropatwari house in Sakdirampur village this afternoon, added the OC. An investigation into how he ended up there continues.

River police recovered the body of a fisherman from Chandpur on Saturday, four days after the fishing boat he was on capsized in Meghna River after being hit by a ferry. Police recovered the floating body of Sanu Gazi, 60, son of Rahim Gazi of Bahria village in the Sadar upazila, from the Harina Ghat area around 12pm,  confirmed Mizanur Rahman, in-charge of Harina River police outpost. Last Tuesday at midnight, seven fishermen went to the Meghna River for netting fish. Later, the fishing boat was hit by a ferry named Golam Maula due to the thick fog and sank. All but Sanu Gazi managed to swim ashore. The coast guard and river police conducted search operations but failed to trace him, said the officer. The body was handed over to his family members after due procedures, he said. Read more: Bangladeshi fisherman injured in firing by Myanmar border force