"Two factory bosses were arrested in Bangladesh on Saturday, 72 hours after the deadly collapse of a building where low-cost garments were made for Western brands, as the death toll rose to 325 and angry workers protested on the streets of the capital."

"The owner of the eight-storey building that fell like a pack of cards around more than 3,000 workers was still on the run."

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Bangladeshi police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of protesters demanding better working conditions after a garment factory collapsed, killing hundreds, earlier this week. M Asaduzzam, a police officer in the control room, called the protests "volatile." Asaduzzam said police used “rubber bullets and tear gas” to disperse the crowd. Meanwhile, the death toll in Wednesday’s deadly building collapse has risen to 300, with authorities expecting to find even more bodies as they search the building. A total of 50 people were found alive Friday, raising the hopes of thousands of relatives. The collapse came just months after a fire in November at a factory that makes clothes for Walmart and other Western labels.

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A new video from MoveOn.org features a daughter asking her mother to do what she can to ensure senators keep dangerous guns out of schools by passing the Assault Weapons Ban. This is part of MoveOn.org members' gun violence prevention campaign, which advocates background checks, limits on high-capacity magazines, and a ban on assault weapons.

A Texas public school employee was accidentally shot and wounded during a district-sponsored handgun safety class. According to local news sources KLTV and The Tyler Morning Telegraph, maintenance worker Glenn Geddie was accidentally shot after a training session aimed towards arming employees.

The Van Independent School District released the following statement on the incident:

At the conclusion of the CHL training on February 27, 2013, one certified person stayed for private instruction with the instructor and had a mechanical malfunction with his weapon. With the assistance of the instructor, the malfunction was addressed, but the gun misfired and the bullet ricocheted coming back to strike the VISD employee in the left leg. The VISD employee was attended to at the scene and transferred to Tyler for further treatment. The injury is not life threatening or disabling. Because of privacy and security issues we cannot make any further statement.

Anyone out there want to tell me what a good idea arming public school staff members is again?

Al Jazeera examines the impact of America's high incarceration rate on its penal system and on poor and minority communities. There are more prisoners in the US than any other nation in the world, with the U.S. making up five percent of the world's population, but accounts for 25 percent of its prison population. In just the last three decades, the number held in U.S. federal prisons has spiked by nearly 80 percent.

"There has been in this country over the last 30 years a relentless upward climb in the incarcerated population and disturbing as the situation is with the federal prison system, that is really only the tip of the iceberg because the federal prison system is only about 10 percent of the total number of people incarcerated in this country. On any given day, we have about 2.3 million people behind bars in federal, state and local facilities."

- David Fathi, ACLU National Prison Project

The number of inmates in U.S. federal prisons has increased from about 25,000 in 1980 to 219,000 in 2012, according to a report by the US Congressional Research Service.

The report says the federal prison system was 39 percent over its capacity back in 2011...and the situation is worse for high and medium security male facilities.

High-security prisons were overcrowded by 51 percent, while medium security prisons were overcrowded by 55 percent in 2011.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), states that overcrowding has contributed to worse safety and security conditions for both inmates and staff.

The overcrowded facilities have contributed to a multibillion dollar demand for private prisons. The industry claims it is helping the government save money. But others argue that for-profit prisons only increase the incentive to incarcerate more people.

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At least 112 employees of a Bangledesh garment factory perished in a blaze late Saturday after becoming trapped inside the building with no fire exits. The factory produced clothing for Wal-Mart, and other U.S. retailers. Were your Black Friday deals worth it?

There was no escape. A fire claimed 112 workers in a garment factory near the capital of Bangladesh late Saturday. A fire official said their last moments were spent in panic as they searched in vain for fire exits leading outside. “I want the factory owner to be hanged,” said one grieving mother who lost her daughter-in-law in the fire and whose son is still missing. “For him, many have died.” Firefighters have recovered 100 bodies from the gutted seven-story factory. Many of Bangladesh’s 4,000 garment shops lack proper fire protections.

The Telegraph:

"The factory had three staircases, and all of them were down through the ground floor," Mahbub said. "So the workers could not come out when the fire engulfed the building."

"Had there been at least one emergency exit through outside the factory, the casualties would have been much lower," he said.

Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition. The recovered bodies were kept in rows on the premise of a nearby school.

Army soldiers and paramilitary border guards were deployed to help police keep the situation under control as thousands of onlookers and anxious relatives of the factory workers gathered at the scene, Mahbub said. He would not say how many people were still missing.

Bangladesh's garment factories make clothes for brands including Wal-Mart, JC Penney, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Carrefour and Tesco.

For the first time in 50 years of Wal-Mart’s smiley-faced existence, workers have been walking out and attempting to disrupt Wal-Mart’s warp-speed supply chain. Why? Because they want things like ceiling fans when it’s 120 degrees outside. But some billionaires can be SO touchy!

Since none of the workers are unionized, these people are especially brave. And now they’re talking about even bigger action on Black Friday.

[Via Upworthy]

Map of major natural gas and oil pipelines in the United States. Hazardous liquid lines in red, gas transmission lines in blue. Source: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

By Lena Groeger, ProPublica

At 6:11 p.m. on September 6, 2010, San Bruno, Calif. 911 received an urgent call. A gas station had just exploded and a fire with flames reaching 300 feet was raging through the neighborhood. The explosion was so large that residents suspected an airplane crash. But the real culprit was found underground: a ruptured pipeline spewing natural gas caused a blast that left behind a 72 foot long crater, killed eight people, and injured more than fifty.

Over 2,000 miles away in Michigan, workers were still cleaning up another pipeline accident, which spilled 840,000 gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010. Estimated to cost $800 million, the accident is the most expensive pipeline spill in U.S. history.

Over the last few years a series of incidents have brought pipeline safety to national u2013 and presidential u2013 attention. As Obama begins his second term he will likely make a key decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed pipeline extension to transport crude from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

The administration first delayed the permit for the pipeline on environmental grounds, but has left the door open to future proposals for Keystone's northern route. Construction on the southern route is already underway, sparking fierce opposition from some landowners and environmentalists.

The problem, protesters say, is that any route will pose hazards to the public. While pipeline operator TransCanada has declared that Keystone will be the safest pipeline ever built in North America, critics are skeptical.

"It's inevitable that as pipelines age, as they are exposed to the elements, eventually they are going to spill," said Tony Iallonardo of the National Wildlife Federation. "They're ticking time bombs."

Critics of the Keystone proposal point to the hundreds of pipeline accidents that occur every year. They charge that system wide, antiquated pipes, minimal oversight and inadequate precautions put the public and the environment at increasing risk. Pipeline operators point to billions of dollars spent on new technologies and a gradual improvement over the last two decades as proof of their commitment to safety.

Pipelines are generally regarded as a safe way to transport fuel, a far better alternative to tanker trucks or freight trains. The risks inherent in transporting fuel through pipelines are analogous to the risks inherent in traveling by airplane. Airplanes are safer than cars, which kill about 70 times as many people a year (highway accidents killed about 33,000 people in 2010, while aviation accidents killed 472). But when an airplane crashes, it is much more deadly than any single car accident, demands much more attention, and initiates large investigations to determine precisely what went wrong.

The same holds true for pipelines. Based on fatality statistics from 2005 through 2009, oil pipelines are roughly 70 times as safe as trucks, which killed four times as many people during those years, despite transporting only a tiny fraction of fuel shipments. But when a pipeline does fail, the consequences can be catastrophic (though typically less so than airplane accidents), with the very deadliest accidents garnering media attention and sometimes leading to a federal investigation.

While both air travel and pipelines are safer than their road alternatives, the analogy only extends so far. Airplanes are replaced routinely and older equipment is monitored regularly for airworthiness and replaced when it reaches its safety limits. Pipelines, on the other hand, can stay underground, carrying highly pressurized gas and oil for decades u2013 even up to a century and beyond. And while airplanes have strict and uniform regulations and safety protocols put forth by the Federal Aviation Administration, such a uniform set of standards does not exist for pipelines.

Critics maintain that while they're relatively safe, pipelines should be safer. In many cases, critics argue, pipeline accidents could have been prevented with proper regulation from the government and increased safety measures by the industry. The 2.5 million miles of America's pipelines suffer hundreds of leaks and ruptures every year, costing lives and money. As existing lines grow older, critics warn that the risk of accidents on those lines will only increase.

While states with the most pipeline mileage u2013 like Texas, California, and Louisiana u2013 also have the most incidents, breaks occur throughout the far-flung network of pipelines. Winding under city streets and countryside, these lines stay invisible most of the time. Until they fail.

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Anonymous hacktivists are targeting Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait and the Anaheim Police Department in an action dubbed “Operation Anaheim.”

In a YouTube video published July 24, Anonymous calls for “the citizens of the United States to rise up in unison” and protest the police brutality in Anaheim.

Violence in Anaheim began Saturday, July 21, with the deadly police shooting of Manuel Diaz, who was unarmed, and according to reports had dropped to his knees before he was shot in the back of the head by police.

Transcript:

Citizens of the World,

We are Anonymous.

The purpose of this video is clear.

We want to inform the citizens of the world, that the United States is setting the flames of revolution. In Anaheim, police shot protesters and bystanders including kids who did nothing wrong. We, Anonymous, are calling yet again to the citizens of the United States, to rise up in unison, and defeat this government which values no lives nor freedom.

Do it for the safety of your families, your homes, and your future generations.

The fate of America is in your hands. Do you wish to be oppressed further, or do you wish to obtain freedom and peace?

The choice is yours. Let beat the drums of war.

Operation Anaheim, engaged.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

This video is part of a five-part "How to Film Protests" series, which incorporates the best practices Witness has developed with over 300 partners in 80 countries who are using video for human rights documentation and to create lasting change.

From raw documentation of human rights violations in Syria to the Occupy protests and the range of police abuse and misconduct therein, citizen video is an increasingly powerful tool for human rights documentation.

Now more than ever we need to ensure that the footage that we capture as activists incorporates essential information like the exact date, time and location so it may best be used by the media, as evidence, and for advocacy. Additionally, we need to pay special attention to the unique safety and security risks that we face as filmmakers and activists, as well as risks to those we capture in our footage.

For more info, go here.