Bangladesh

Death toll climbs in factory collapse

Rescuers digging through the concrete debris of a collapsed sweater factory in Bangladesh heard survivors pleading for help Tuesday, but the cries were fading a day after the nine-story building toppled, killing at least 30 people and trapping 200.

Nine bodies were pulled from the rubble overnight, but rescuers were hopeful that more lives could be saved. Some trapped survivors could be heard calling for help and begging for water, witnesses said. Emergency workers said hopes of finding more survivors were fading.

The building near Savar, an industrial town 20 miles northwest of the capital Dhaka, collapsed after a boiler explosion early Monday.

On Tuesday, one survivor walked out of the rubble.

The survivor, who was trapped on the ground floor, was later identified only as Polash, 25. He was recovering in a hospital.

Nurul Islam, a police official supervising the rescue work, said about 200 people were feared trapped beneath the mangled sweater factory that collapsed Monday.

Anxious relatives joined soldiers, firefighters and volunteers in the search for those trapped. Islam, the police official, said at least 92 injured workers were taken to hospitals.

Puerto Rico

Survey finds islanders happiest in world

Puerto Ricans have ranked highest in the world in one survey of how satisfied people are with their lives, but the result is drawing head-shaking on the Caribbean island, where some say residents have plenty of problems and psychologists estimate nearly one in three is at risk of mental illness.

The Sweden-based World Values Survey drew its conclusions from questionnaires filled out by some 120,000 people in 82 nations, but some newspaper reports have mistakenly suggested the findings mean Puerto Ricans are the happiest in the world, said Jorge Benitez Nazario, a political scientist who directed the study on the island.

“Puerto Ricans are satisfied they have maintained their identity as Puerto Ricans, in spite of bad government, poor public services, and the presence of too many foreigners in Puerto Rico,” Benitez said Monday. “It has nothing to do with joy. It has everything to do with conformism.”

The survey, published in November, allowed people to rank their happiness and satisfaction with life. Those answers yielded a “subjective well-being” index, on which Puerto Rico ranked No. 1, followed by Mexico and Denmark. However, on the question of happiness alone Puerto Rico actually ranked No. 6, Benitez said.

Canada

Liberals scramble to prevent collapse

Canadians call it their Watergate — a kickback scandal that has badly damaged the Liberal Party and now threatens to bring down the government of Paul Martin.

How long Martin can remain prime minister is anyone’s guess. The halls of Parliament were rife Monday with speculation about whether new elections were around the corner.

The separatist Bloc Quebecois could introduce a confidence motion by Thursday, though the more powerful Conservative Party was hedging, knowing most Canadians are not keen on new elections.

Martin reiterated that he had nothing to do with the ethics fiasco, in which Liberal Party members are accused of having taken kickbacks from advertising agencies hired to promote federalism in the rebellious French-speaking province of Quebec.