Primark backs safety drive in wake of Bangladesh factory disaster Retailer warns it may pull its clothing manufacturing operations out of Bangladesh if standards fail to improve

Primark backs safety drive in wake of Bangladesh factory disaster

Retailer warns it may pull its clothing manufacturing operations out of Bangladesh if standards fail to improve

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The rubble of collapsed Rana Plaza garment factory building in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, earlier this year. Photograph: Wong Maye-E/AP

Primark has warned that it could pull its clothes manufacturing operations out of Bangladesh if a safety drive fails to improve standards in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster in April, which claimed 1,129 lives.
Primark is one of 50 brands, including Next and Zara, that have agreed to contribute up to $500,000 (£324,000) a year towards rigorous independent factory inspections and the installation of fire-safety measures under a five-year plan. The scheme will sit alongside the Bangladeshi government's new programme to improve safety.
"By signing up to the accord, we are all committing to at least maintaining the level of business we have in Bangladesh for five years. After that period, we will have to re-evaluate our position. We don't want to be in unsafe factories," said Katherine Kirk, Primark's ethical trading director.
Primark was one of around 40 brands producing clothes within Rana Plaza. The disaster highlighted the working conditions in Bangladesh's £13bn-a-year garment industry and the plight of millions of workers who are paid as little as £25 a month.
Rana Plaza was built on unstable ground using poor-quality materials, while two floors were added to a design that had been approved for six storeys only. Kirk said that Primark tried to safeguard the workers producing its clothing, but admitted that it had not carried out structural surveys of buildings. The firm keeps eight permanent staff in Bangladesh to monitor conditions in its factories, and works with local partners to train factory owners in safety. But Kirk said brands needed government support to ensure that safety laws were being enforced.
"When you look at the ethical audits that we are carrying out, the majority of what we are checking is that factories are meeting legal requirements. We would hope that governments are supporting an infrastructure that is monitoring those requirements as well," she said.
The Bangladeshi government has admitted it needs to recruit hundreds more factory inspectors. Just 51 inspectors issue factory operating licences in the country, which has more than 3,000 garment plants.

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Iran: vote early, and vote often The election is not going to be boycotted by the opposition, and this can only be good news

A young girl holds a photograph of Saeed Jalili, Iran's lead nuclear negotiator and a candidate in the country's presidential election on 14 June. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

However far elections in Iran fail the basic test of being free and fair, they are not, paradoxically foregone conclusions. Last month, as hundreds registered to stand for the presidential election, everyone groaned as the two heavyweights who could have counterbalanced the overarching power of Iran's supreme leader, former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, either refused to run or were disqualified. Countering rumours that he was too old and thus unfit for the presidency, Rafsanjani revealed this week that the guardian council had been swayed in its deliberations by a senior security figure, reinforcing the notion that his exclusion was politically motivated. So much for the predictable.
But now for the opposite. Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, who many saw as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's preferred candidate, has performed terribly, particularly on his special subject – the handling of Iran's nuclear negotiations. It has come under fire from all sides – moderates and conservatives alike. Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric and former chief nuclear negotiator himself said it is great to have the uranium enrichment centrifuges spinning, providing that Iran keeps its economy spinning too. Ali Akbar Velayati, a conservative who advises Khamenei on foreign policy, also laid into Jalili during a television debate, saying that the art of diplomacy was to preserve Iran's nuclear rights, not to see sanctions increase. Jalili's star is falling, but under this system there are still five of the original eight who made it through the guardian council hurdle whom Ayatollah Khamenei would be comfortable with as president.
But that is not all. Iran's beleaguered reformists have thrown their weight behind Rouhani. To avoid splitting the vote , the other reformist candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref, withdrew on Monday in what appeared to be a coordinated plan. In addition, a consensus is now forming within what remains of the green movement, whose leaders are under house arrest, and among prisoners a no-vote or a spoiled vote is a vote for conservatism. They well remember that in 2005 more people did not vote than voted for the regime candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The election is not going to be boycotted by the opposition, and this can only be good news.
Elections are run by the ministry of interior, part of the government dominated by the outgoing president. He has become an opponent of those around Ayatollah Khamenei, although he has not attacked the supreme leader himself. All this points to a more freewheeling event on Friday than anyone could have imagined last month. The current conservative favourite is Tehran's mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. A further runoff vote would favour his side, but anything is still possible.
• This article was amended on 13 June 2013. The original misspelled "foregone" as "forgone".

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Comment is free Iran: an opportunity to be seized This is about more than one man – the way he came to power matters, too

Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, has come across as strongly critical of his country's current trajectory at home and abroad. Photograph: Corbis

Amid the storm clouds thickening and darkening over Syria, there was one shaft of sunlight at the weekend: the election of a moderate cleric as Iran's president. Whether it is because of the west's bungled intervention in Iraq, or simply the law of unintended consequences, Iran's influence has indisputably grown. Today its decisions affect Arab lives from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from the Turkish border to the Gulf. Of all the options available to the US in trying to roll back this power – punitive sanctions, military confrontation or arming the Gulf states – negotiation is still the most attractive. In Hassan Rouhani, a partner for negotiation may have finally arrived.
This is about more than one man – the way he came to power matters, too. To take one small snapshot, Qom, a city full of clerics, voted for him, not against. To have Qom vote against the five regime candidates left in the race, defying the will of the guardian council who vetted them, sends a powerful signal in its own right. Mr Rouhani's warning that Iran's stand over nuclear fuel must not come at the cost of its economy plainly won the backing of a broad swath of Iranian opinion, transcending conservative and reformist camps. In 2009, Iran's nuclear policy was not centre stage of the election campaign; this weekend it was. This alone should put the ultra-conservative group around the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the defensive.
Mr Rouhani's victory also showed that the reformist camp had learned the lessons of the stolen election in 2009. The two reformist leaders backing him, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, showed their hand for Mr Rouhani only at the eleventh hour. This took skill. Until then, the regime had no idea who really lay behind his candidacy. Mr Rafsanjani and Mr Khatami did not go for the most outspoken reformist in the race. By persuading Mohammad-Reza Aref to stand down, they showed the reformists could play Iranian politics. Since the crackdown which followed the election of 2009, they have lowered their expectations, deciding that small steps forwards are better than large steps backward.
The character of Iran's new president also matters. Unlike his confrontational predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr Rouhani is a consensus builder. He is a seasoned diplomat who knows the west. Under him, Iran suspended enrichment and allowed international inspectors in. Full suspension of the uranium-spinning centrifuges is unlikely to be repeated, and the west must understand that much power still lies in the hands of Mr Khamenei and Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Mr Rouhani clearly represents an opportunity to unwind Iran's ticking nuclear clock. But the US and its allies must also learn important lessons from years of stalemate. The draconian sanctions need to be reversible: for Mr Rouhani to be able to make concessions, he must be able to go back to his people with tangible economic gains. Iran's sovereignty must be respected, including that which relates to properly monitored civil nuclear power, and it must also be engaged in a growing non-nuclear agenda, principally Syria.
The clearest indication of that came not from the wary G8 leaders assembled yesterday, but from Cairo. President Mohamed Morsi cut diplomatic relations with Damascus, while calling both for Hezbollah to leave Syria and for a no-fly zone. The man who tried and failed to convene a conference including Iran and Saudi Arabia was expressing his frustration with Shia-led attacks on Sunni Muslims. Before Sunni jihadis start flocking into Syria, Iran must realise what is at stake – and back down. Posing as a champion of the Shia is one thing; fighting a war with Sunni Arabs is another – and it is not a fight Iran will win.
Russia cannot be counted as an intermediary on Iran. Vladimir Putin has not got the strategic vision to do that in his current mood. Few other countries have got the clout. Thus it is only America which can engage Iran. If it does so, Barack Obama's prematurely outstretched hand might finally find a recipient.

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