JERUSALEM: Israel’s government is divided on the issue of peace with the Palestinians, its top negotiator and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday ahead of a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

“There are ideological differences at the heart of the government,” Livni told public radio.

The stalling of the peace process since September 2010 “only serves the interests of those who think that each passing day (without a peace agreement) allows them to build a new house,” she said, in reference to Jewish settlement building on Palestinian territory, a key issue preventing a return to talks.

“But this is not the position of the majority of Israel’s population,” she added.

Livni’s remarks came hours ahead of a meeting with Kerry, who arrived in Israel on Thursday to push for a resumption of talks on his fourth visit to the region since taking office in February.

Kerry headed straight into a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is also due to meet President Shimon Peres and travel to Ramallah to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Israel’s coalition government, headed by the Likud party’s Netanyahu, also includes the rightwing nationalist Jewish Home and the centrist Yesh Atid, which oppose concessions on settlement building, the cessation of which is a Palestinian precondition for any peace talks.

Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erakat said earlier this month that Israeli plans to build nearly 300 new homes in a West Bank settlement near Ramallah were proof it was trying to “sabotage” US efforts to revive talks.

“We condemn this new decision which is proof that the Israeli government wants to sabotage and ruin the US administration’s efforts to revive the peace process,” he told AFP.

His remarks came shortly after officials confirmed the defence ministry had given the go-ahead to build 296 housing units at Beit El, although Israel’s chief negotiator sought to play down the impact of the decision.

“There is no need for this to become a pretext for drama or anger,” Livni told army radio at the time, saying she had updated the Americans about the development.

LONDON: The savage murder of a man believed to be a soldier on a London street in a suspected terror attack was “beyond belief” but will only strengthen Britain’s support for its armed forces, newspapers said Thursday.

Two suspects were arrested following the attack, which happened in broad daylight, but not before they had launched a filmed tirade against Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan.

“We killed this British soldier. It’s an eye for an eye,” said the Sun’s headline, quoting from the recorded message.

The Daily Telegraph ran with the headline “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We won’t stop fighting you until you leave us alone.”

Also quoting the attacker, the Guardian carried the words “You people will never be safe,” on top of a picture of the suspect waving a bloodied hand and wielding a meat cleaver.

The Daily Mail used the same picture on its front page above the headline “Blood on his hands, hatred in his eyes”.

The Sun described the attack as “almost beyond belief” in its editorial.

The victim was believed to have been wearing a jumper supporting Help for Heroes, an armed forces charity championed by the paper.

In its editorial, the Sun called on Britons to rally behind their servicemen.

“Today we must defy the extremists and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our armed services,” it said.

“We must show our support in words and in actions. And if you see a soldier today, shake them by the hand and say thank you,” it urged.

The Daily Telegraph’s editorial backed Prime Minister David Cameron’s assertion that the country would “never buckle” to terrorists.

“One of the most welcome developments in recent years has been the rebuilding of the connections between our soldiers and the citizens they protect,” it said.

“If it transpires that terrorists have indeed taken a grisly revenge for Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, there will need to be an urgent review of current security arrangements for all military personnel.

“But we should also remember that the Prime Minister is right. Britain’s enemies, both within and without, want to destroy not just our lives but our values – including our pride in and support for the Armed Forces. And that is something they will never do,” it concluded.

VIENNA: Iran is making significant progress in expanding its nuclear programme, including in opening up a potential second route to developing the bomb, a new UN atomic agency report showed Wednesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest quarterly update said Tehran had accelerated the installation of advanced uranium enrichment equipment at its central Natanz plant.

It also outlined further progress at a reactor under construction at Arak, also in central Iran, which Western countries fear could provide Iran with plutonium if the fuel is reprocessed.

The US State Department said the report was an “unfortunate milestone” marking a decade of Iran expanding its nuclear activities “in blatant violation of its international obligations”. A US congressional panel backed tougher sanctions against Iran.

Highly enriched uranium and plutonium can both be used in a nuclear weapon. North Korea used plutonium in two tests in 2006 and 2009, while uranium was used in the “Little Boy” atomic bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

The new IAEA report, seen by AFP, said Iran has installed at Natanz almost 700 IR-2m centrifuges and/or empty centrifuge casings, compared with just 180 in February. None was operating, however.

Iran has said it intends to install around 3,000 of the new centrifuges at Natanz — where around 13,500 of the older models are in place — enabling it to speed up the enrichment of uranium.

The UN Security Council has passed numerous resolutions calling on Iran to suspend all enrichment and heavy water activities of the kind under development at Arak. It has imposed four rounds of sanctions.

Last year additional unilateral US and EU sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports and its financial system began to cause real problems for the Persian Gulf country’s economy.

Israel, the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, has refused to rule out military action against Iran, as has US President Barack Obama. Iran says that its atomic activities are peaceful.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the impasse, most recently in six-power talks with Iran in Kazakhstan in April, have failed to make concrete progress.

Despite developments at Natanz, the IAEA report noted that Iran has not started operating any new equipment at its Fordo facility, built under a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

Fordo is of more concern to the international community, since it is used to enrich uranium to fissile purities of 20 percent and Natanz mostly to five percent, technically much closer to the 90-percent level needed for a bomb.

The IAEA report showed that Iran has produced so far 324 kilos of 20-percent enriched uranium, 44 kilos more than three months ago, but that 140.8 kilos have been diverted to fuel production, up from 111 kilos.

Experts say that around 240-250 kilos are needed for one bomb.

At the research reactor under construction at Arak, which Iran says will start operating in the third quarter of 2014, the IAEA said that the plant’s large reactor vessel had been received but not yet installed.

The same was true of a number of other major components, it added.

Iran had not provided the IAEA with “urgently required” updated design information for the IR-40 reactor at Arak since 2006, the IAEA added.

“This is important because the reactor could be used to produce enough weapons grade plutonium for one weapon a year,” Mark Fitzpatrick, analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told AFP.

The IAEA is also pressing Iran to provide access to documents, sites and scientists involved in what it suspects were research activities, mostly in the past but possibly ongoing, towards developing the bomb.

At one of these sites, the Parchin military base near Tehran, the new IAEA report said that in addition to months of activity levelling the area that the agency wants to inspect, Iran has now covering a “significant proportion” with asphalt.

“I don’t think they are doing themselves any favours,” one senior official familiar with the probe said, adding that some rubble from the site had been dumped in lakes.

In the US Congress Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act, which would extend sanctions against Iran to the auto and mining sectors and foreign currency reserves.

The new law, should it pass the House and Senate and be signed by President Barack Obama, would require further reduction of one million barrels per day over the next year, amounting to a virtual embargo on Iran’s crude exports.

WASHINGTON: The United States should consider curbs on Chinese investment or even offensive operations against hackers to address the growing toll from intellectual property theft, a report said Wednesday.

The 11-month study led by high-ranking former US officials said that theft of software and other US-developed products was costing the American economy more than $300 billion each year – as much as the United States sells to Asia.

“The scale of international theft of American intellectual property today, we believe, is unprecedented,” commission co-chair Jon Huntsman, the former US ambassador to China and presidential candidate, told reporters.

He said that the United States would have the equivalent of 2.1 million more jobs if foreign intellectual property standards were enforced to their fullest.

The report called for tougher measures by the United States, including scrutinizing foreign companies’ treatment of intellectual property when they seek approval for investments in the world’s largest economy.

It also urged the United States to look at changing laws to allow “offensive cyber” — chasing after hackers overseas to retrieve stolen information or even to physically disable their computers.

“You’ve got to have leverage in the game,” Huntsman said. “IP theft needs to have consequences and with costs sufficiently high that state and corporate behavior and attitudes that support such theft are fundamentally changed.”

The report — a private initiative also co-chaired by Dennis Blair, the former director of national intelligence — did not clearly recommend offensive cyber capabilities, noting the risk for unforeseen damage.

But it said that laws have not kept up to date with technology and that a purely defensive approach is likely to become “increasingly expensive and decreasingly effective.”

“Almost all the advantages are on the side of the hacker; the current situation is not sustainable,” it said.

The commission also recommended structural changes, including assigning the president’s national security adviser to coordinate the US response to intellectual property theft.

The damning report comes ahead of talks between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping at a California resort on June 7-8, their first meeting since the Chinese leader took office.

Cyber issues are expected to be high on the agenda amid growing US accusations that China has waged a campaign of online espionage against US companies and the government.

In the past, China has defended its record and in turn accused the United States of unfair trading practices, such as denial of sensitive technologies and several high-profile rejections of Chinese investment bids.

Speaking earlier Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Chinese Ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai said: “We should never politicize the economic issues because they will only make things more difficult to resolve.”

Huntsman said he expected that Chinese officials would reject the report but voiced hope that it could provide ammunition for Chinese who support reform.

“They know that in order to reach out to the world, as many of the state-owned enterprises want to do, they are going to have to look and feel more like companies with global standards,” Huntsman said.

Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, welcomed the report and said it showed the need for Congress to approve a law to let the government and companies share Internet information.

President Barack Obama’s administration and civil liberties advocates oppose the law due to privacy concerns.

While the report listed China as the biggest culprit in intellectual property theft by far, commission member Slade Gorton, a former US senator, said that Russia, India and Venezuela were the next largest violators.

The 60-year-old was ordered to remain immobile in bed after he fractured vertebrae and a rib after falling from a hoist lifting him to a stage just days before the May 11 general election.

The former cricket star electrified much of the campaign with his calls for reform and galvanised many young people to vote, but was forced to spend polling day in hospital.

While footage showed him, in a neck brace, walking out of the hospital without any help, doctors have advised him rest for the next few weeks and to continue physiotherapy. “Khan got off his bed and walked from his room on the third floor of the hospital to the exit gate on the ground floor without anybody’s help,” said SKMC Hospital officials. A video of Khan getting off the bed and walking to the exit gate was released by the hospital.

“Imran Khan is doing fine and has recovered speedily. He will, however, receive physiotherapy and wear a spinal support for some more weeks. Khan will gradually increase his physical activity in next few weeks. He will return to his full functional capacity approximately in six to eight weeks,” a statement by SKMC Hospital read.

Khan to sit out May 24 protest

The PTI chief will not be able to participate in the party’s May 24 protest at Election Commission of Pakistan in Islamabad. “Khan will not go to Islamabad physically. He will address the protest through video-link. He is fine and in high spirits,” PTI Punjab President Ijaz Chaudhary told The Express Tribune.

Chaudhary, along with other PTI leaders, called on Khan at his residence in Lahore on Wednesday after he was discharged from the hospital. PTI General Secretary Punjab Dr Yasmeen Rashid, Rai Azizullah, and Hasan Nawaz also called on the former cricket star at his residence.

“The entire party leadership will be present outside the ECP Islamabad on May 24. Khan will speak about his expectations from the chief justice of Pakistan and chief election commission regarding rigging in the general elections. PTI workers and supporters will attend the protest from across the country and this will be a historic protest against the rigging,” said a senior office-bearer of PTI.

Meanwhile, the PTI Women Wing held a protest demonstration in Lahore against the killing of the party’s Sindh vice president Zahra Shahid Hussain. They demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2013.

LONDON: A man believed to be a serving British soldier was brutally murdered in broad daylight near a London barracks on Wednesday in what Prime Minister David Cameron said appeared to be a terrorist attack.

Cameron called the attack “appalling” and said, “There are strong indications that it is a terrorist incident.”

Armed police shot and wounded the two suspected attackers.

One broadcaster showed footage of one of the men at the scene carrying a blood-covered knife and meat cleaver saying to the camera: “We swear… we will never stop fighting you.”

The black man, dressed in a grey hooded jacket and black woolly hat, made a number of political statements to bystanders.

“We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” he says in a London accent in the video.

He adds: “I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”

The government’s emergency response committee was immediately convened.

The attack took place in broad daylight around 200 metres from the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, about 15km east of 10 Downing Street.

Cameron, who was to return early from talks with French President Francois Hollande in Paris to deal with the aftermath, called the attack “truly shocking”.

Hollande said at a press conference that the victim was a soldier, but Cameron gave no confirmation.

A local member of parliament said he believed the dead man was a soldier.

Cameron said, “We’ve had this sort of attack before in our country and we never buckle in the face of them.”

Home Secretary Theresa May chaired a meeting of COBRA, the government’s emergency civil contingencies committee.

“It has been confirmed to me that a man has been brutally murdered this afternoon in southeast London,” she said.

“Two other men were shot by armed police and they are currently receiving treatment for their injuries. This is a sickening and barbaric attack.”

Police were called at 2:20 pm (1320 GMT) to reports of one man being assaulted by two others.

“A number of weapons were reportedly being used in the attack, and this included reports of a firearm,” said police commander Simon Letchford.

Local police officers, then firearms officers arrived on the scene where they found a man who was later pronounced dead.

“Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police. They were taken to separate London hospitals, they are receiving treatment for their injuries,” Letchford said.

He said there would be a heightened police presence in the area and urged locals to remain calm.

A white and blue police evidence tent was visible in the street and police tape sealed off the scene. People in forensic suits were also seen.

Eyewitness pictures showed an air ambulance landing in the road and three bodies lying on the ground with dozens of onlookers observing the scene after the police arrived.

Nick Raynsford, the member of parliament for Woolwich and Greenwich, said his understanding after speaking to police and army officers was that the dead man was a soldier.

“We think a serving soldier was the victim,” he said.

“A number of weapons have been seized. They include a gun, various knives, and a machete, apparently.

“The police clearly had to take action in order to try and arrest these individuals.”

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said Queen Elizabeth II — who is due to visit the barracks later this month — was being kept updated.

“The queen is of course concerned by the report of an attack in Woolwich,” he said.

“Her Majesty is being kept informed.”

The spokesperson confirmed the monarch would carry out a planned visit to the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery at the barracks on May 31.

MUSCAT: US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday discussed a $2.1 billion deal with Omani leaders to supply an American-made air-defence system to the Arab state facing Iran in the Gulf.

Kerry told Oman’s Defence Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi that the United States was “excited” about the deal and “very grateful for your confidence in Raytheon,” manufacturers of the defence system.

The two countries “are pleased to announce a deal for the acquisition of a US manufactured ground based air defence system,” a joint US-Bahrain statement said later on Wednesday.

It said final negotiations were in progress with Raytheon Company and a “final conclusion of the deal is expected following agreements on the technical aspects of the system, through life support and maintenance and other related matters”.

The system “offers high levels of effectiveness, capable of meeting the operational requirements of the Royal Air Force of Oman and providing seamless air protection by virtue of its cutting edge air defence technology,” it added.

The details of the contract are still being worked through, and a letter of intent is to be signed “soon, but they are still finalising technical details,” a State Department spokesperson said, asking not to be named.

US officials said earlier that Oman had decided in January to buy a ground-based air defence system produced by US giant Raytheon, which is based in Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts.

The new top US diplomat had strongly backed the proposed deal before he took office in February.

“Part of the goal of this is to push US commercial interests, to demonstrate to Oman that these are important to this administration,” another US official had said before Kerry arrived in Oman on Tuesday.

“We have initiated the talks” about the system, Busaidi said as he met Kerry in the defence ministry in Muscat on Wednesday for talks also attended by Raytheon senior director Ken Gordon.

The Omanis believed it was “the best and most effective system that is out there,” Busaidi said

“Talks are underway at this point, and we are at the technical stages but we are hoping to move to the final discussion and sign a contract,” he added.

“We are in need of this defence system, which also pertains to the defence strategy of the other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.”

Sunni Muslim Arab monarchies of the Gulf have long had strained ties with Shiite-dominated Iran. These deteriorated further in early 2011 after a Saudi-led military intervention crushed Shiite-led pro-democracy protests in Bahrain, also run by a Sunni dynasty.

After his visit to Oman, Kerry landed in Amman to attend a key meeting of the “Friends of Syria” group being held on Wednesday.

He will travel to Israel for talks Thursday and Friday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

NEW DELHI: India said Wednesday it will do all within its means to promote stability in Afghanistan after visiting President Hamid Karzai said he had given a military “wishlist” to the Indian government.

“We have a wishlist that we have put before the government of India,” Karzai told reporters in New Delhi, adding it was up to the Indian leadership to decide how much help it was willing to extend to Kabul.

India’s foreign ministry refused to detail what the “wishlist” contained but local media reports said it included light and heavy artillery, aircraft and small arms and ammunitions.

“The leaders agreed that both countries will work together and will do all within their means to promote stability and security in Afghanistan,” said Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin.

Karzai’s comments came after his office said last week that he would ask for “all kinds of assistance from India in order to strengthen our military and security institutions” during the high-level talks in the Indian capital.

Karzai held closed-door talks late Tuesday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a separate meeting with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on his two-day trip which ended on Wednesday.

India has been training a limited number of Afghan military officers for years at its military institutions, but has provided little weapons assistance except for some vehicles.

India’s support for Karzai is a reflection of its desire to ensure that the departure of the United States and other foreign forces in 2014 does not lead to the return of the radical Taliban to power in Kabul, analysts say.

In 2011, India and Afghanistan began a “strategic partnership” to deepen security and economic ties. But Indian activity in Afghanistan has sparked unease in neighbouring Pakistan which fears losing influence in Kabul.

A statement from Karzai’s office in Kabul on Wednesday sought to underline its neighbourly relations with both India and Pakistan while ruling out inviting Indian troops to the country after the US pullout.

“Afghanistan is a sovereign country and… has the right to choose its own friends. Pakistan is a neighbour, it is a close neighbour and the people of Pakistan have given Afghans refuge for 30 years,” the statement said.

“India is a traditional friend and ally, particularly so over the last 10 years,” the Afghan statement added.

DUBLIN: Pakistan are keener than ever to get back on the field for the first of two one-day internationals against Ireland on Thursday after their second ODI against Scotland on the weekend was a wash-out.

As Ireland are the strongest team outside the Full Members – they are five places below sixth ranked Pakistan – it promises to be a more searching examination for the team as the countdown to the Champions Trophy starts in earnest.

Although Scotland caused Misbahul Haq’s side early problems in both innings of the first game, reducing Pakistan to 115 for five and then racing away to 50 for one in 12 overs, a captain’s knock doubled the tourists’ score in the last 20 overs and three wickets each from Junaid Khan and Saaed Ajmal hurried Scotland to a 96-run defeat.

But as Scotland captain Kyle Coetzer admitted after the match, from a similar position Ireland would likely to have gone and won the match and that is the difference that Pakistan should notice at Clontarf on Thursday and Sunday.

Seven of the Ireland team are regulars in their county line-ups and the other four, including Kevin O’Brien, the man who almost single-handedly defeated England two years ago with the fastest ever century at the World Cup finals, are likely to have more than 230 one-day international appearances between them.

Indeed, O’Brien is one of five survivors from the game that put Ireland on the world map, their victory over Pakistan at Sabina Park, Jamaica. Also still around and arguably playing better than ever are winning captain Trent Johnston, Niall O’Brien, Andrew White and current skipper William Porterfield.

Pakistan still have three players from that infamous day six years ago: Kamran Akmal, their top scorer and who has previous experience of club cricket in Ireland, Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez.

Hafeez disappeared from the Pakistan Test team after the 2007 World Cup but after a three-year exile he has not only returned to the fold but is now considered the captain-elect when Misbah decides to step down.

He is also now the No 1 all-rounder in one-day internationals – the fourth ranked bowler and needing just three for 100 wickets.

But modestly, Hafeez said: “I always see my responsibility as a batsman. I never try to do too much with my bowling, I have some limitations and I know that, so I always stick to the basics, and it’s been working for me for the last two or three years.

“I feel that I’ve found good consistency. I try to stay economical for my team and pick up the odd wicket.”

After the new ball partnership of Junaid and the giant Mohammad Irfan, it is Saeed Ajmal, the No 1 ranked bowler, who will cause the teams below the very top class the most problems as the Scots found to their cost.

The batting has been too reliant on Misbah in recent series and it is no coincidence that the captain has hit half centuries in the last three ODIs which Pakistan have won. Conversely, the three games they lost in South Africa in March was when he didn’t.

The low, slow pitch at Clontarf may not be ideal for batsmen to express themselves but it time for others to come to the party.

SAVAR: Mamun was hailed a hero for pulling survivors from the ruins of Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza factory complex but now he struggles to sleep, haunted by the memory of sawing off a young woman’s hand.

“I had never even touched the hand of a woman before but it was the only way to save her and the others,” said the 22-year-old in an interview ahead of the one-month anniversary of the disaster.

“My hand was soaked in blood by the end and I still can’t get that image out of my head.”

A total of 1,127 people died when the nine-storey building collapsed on the morning of April 24 in Savar, a suburb of the capital Dhaka, making it one of the deadliest industrial disasters of all time.

But the tragedy took its toll on others, including an army of volunteers who rescued hundreds but also encountered unimaginable horrors such as bodies decayed beyond identity.

Many of the hundreds of volunteers who spent nearly three weeks sifting through the ruins have reported similar signs of trauma as that experienced by Mamun, who like many Bangladeshis only uses one name.

Mamun, a part-time tailor, risked his life to crawl through a hole to reach three women on the second day of the rescue effort, only to find that a hand of one of them was encased in concrete and she was blocking access to the others.

“She was pleading to me: ‘Please cut my hand’. There was no anaesthetic so I borrowed a hacksaw from the army,” he said.

The army says at least 2,438 people – mostly female garment workers – were rescued, including 968 people who were seriously injured. Many of them had limbs amputated either at the site or in hospital.

The scale of the disaster meant students at a medical college next to the local Enam Hospital had to carry out some of the amputations. Sometimes the operations were done without anaesthetic and howls of agony echoed around the hospital.

The hospital says it has treated around 60 volunteers for trauma, including several medical students.

Trainee doctor Sushmita Nargis said she has been taking anti-anxiety tablets as she tries to cope with the memories.

“At one stage it felt as if the only sound I could hear in my head was of ambulance sirens. They just wouldn’t stop,” said Nargis.

“And then there were those heart-wrenching cries of the amputees and their relatives… How are you meant to feel when hundreds of patients lie all around you, crying and writhing in pain?”

The volunteers included students, street hawkers and housewives as well as garment workers who were the first on the scene.

Sometimes armed with little more than hammers or shovels, they proceeded to pull out hundreds of survivors whom they could see or hear crying out for help.

Others clubbed together to buy specialist drilling equipment.

The Bangladeshi government shunned offers from the United Nations and elsewhere for specialist help, leaving the army to coordinate the rescue effort.

As the days went by, the numbers of survivors fell away and the overwhelming memories that linger for the volunteers are the sights and smells of rotting corpses.

Even when the volunteers did manage to locate survivors, they were sometimes unable to bring them to safety as they were trapped by the debris.

Asma Akter Liza, who donated money to buy a drill after selling some of her books and clothes, fought back tears as she recalled the death of one young woman.

“I came across a girl called Bakul and she held out her hand to me from a tiny hole in the rubble,” said the 28-year-old housewife.

“I held her hand for hours and we talked about everything. She called me sister.

“But in the end we could not save her. She was stuck in such a tiny pocket that it was impossible.

“These days her eyes, her cries for help haunt me all the time. Sometimes I can’t control my tears.”

The trauma has prompted many volunteers to seek counselling or medication as they seek to blot out the memories.

“Every time I go to bed, it feels like I’m in a dark place from where I can’t escape,” said Mamun.

“I thought of going to a mental hospital, but I don’t have enough money.”

Mohammed Badal, who pulled 18 of his fellow textile workers from the ruins, also struggles to sleep.

“Whenever I try to sleep, I end up hearing them crying out to me: ‘Please save me brother, please save me brother’,” said the 25-year-old.

“I sometimes even hear the cries in the daytime.”