Xiamen | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.

Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.

The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.

The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.

In China, Wastewater Irrigates Parks and Spreads Bacteria – Businessweek

In theory, recycling water in China’s parched cities, including Beijing, makes ecological sense. But when wastewater is inadequately treated before being used to water urban parks—or redirected through scenic downtown canals—it can become an environmental health hazard.

Something Is Scary in the Water That Irrigates Many Chinese Parks

Six researchers in Beijing and Xiamen working for the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently decided to compare conditions in city parks watered with fresh water vs. recycled water. Their findings, reported in a July 24 article in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, may make you squirm.

Conventional wastewater treatment plants are designed to remove solids, organic matter, and nutrients from water, but they aren’t properly equipped to treat the kinds of waste that may be found in used water from hospitals and pharmaceutical facilities. In particular, most wastewater plants in China don’t remove traces of antibiotics and may even become “reservoirs” for them, as the researchers put it.

Even treated wastewater can therefore become a vector for spreading antibiotics, as well as “antibiotic resistant genes”—chance genetic mutations that make bacteria resistant to drugs. The researchers found that urban parks in China doused with recycled water contained dangerously elevated levels of antibiotic resistant genes, with quantities from 100 times to 8,655 times greater than in other parks.

An April 30 report from the World Health Organization sounded the alarm about growing antibiotic resistance worldwide: “This serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world. … Antibiotic resistance–when bacteria change so antibiotics no longer work in people who need them to treat infections–is now a major threat to public health.”

Apparently lousy sewage systems and some irrigated parks in China, and likely elsewhere, are helping to accelerate the threat. China’s situation is particularly risky because of a culture of rampant overprescription of antibiotics, which the government is trying hard to bring under control.

via In China, Wastewater Irrigates Parks and Spreads Bacteria – Businessweek.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Environment | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Antibiotic resistance, Beijing, China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Conventional wastewater treatment plants, Environmental Science & Technology, urban parks, Water supply and sanitation in the People's Republic of China, World Health Organization, Xiamen

22/12/2012

* Land grabs are main cause of mainland protests, experts say

If the new Chinese leadership is serious about improving the lives of its citizens and removing reasons to distrust the Party, this is one area it should concentrate on rather than reducing banquets and other ostentatious spending by officials and senior soldiers. The former affects people directly, the latter only peripherally. Though eventually both must change.

SCMP: “Land seizures, pollution and labour disputes have been the three main causes of tens of thousands of mass protests in recent years, according to a top think-tank.

In its 2013 Social Development Blue Book, released on Tuesday, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the mainland was experiencing frequent social conflict because “social contradictions were diverse and complex”.

It said there had been more than 100,000 “mass incidents” – the central government’s term for large protests involving more than 100 people – every year in recent years.

Professor Chen Guangjing, editor of this year’s book, said that disputes over land grabs accounted for about half of “mass incidents”, while pollution and labour disputes were responsible for 30 per cent. Other kinds of disputes accounted for the remaining 20 per cent.

“Of the tens of thousands of incidents of rural unrest that occur each year in China, the vast majority of them result from land confiscations and home demolitions for development,” Chen told a news conference in Beijing yesterday.

Late last year, about 1,000 villagers from Wukan, Guangdong, rioted and overthrew corrupt local leaders who had profited from illegal sales of village land.

Chen said environmental concerns were also becoming a main cause of social unrest, as evidenced by a series of grass-roots demonstrations over polluting projects.

More than 20,000 people rallied in Xiamen, Fujian province, in June 2007 to protest against plans to build a chemical plant in the city.

The project was subsequently relocated and the Xiamen backdown sparked similar protests in several mainland cities.

The major cause of labour disputes was salary arrears. There over 120 protests that involved more than 100 workers each in the first eight months of this year.

Chen said courts and labour arbitration tribunals had dealt with 479,000 back-pay cases in the first nine months of this year.

The book says 120 million mainlanders are living under the poverty line – with per capita annual disposable income of less than 2,300 yuan (HK$2,830). The government last year raised the poverty line from the previous level of 1,200 yuan, set in 2008.

Professor Li Peilin, the blue book’s editor-in-chief, said household income growth had lagged far behind gross domestic product growth over the past decade.”

via Land grabs are main cause of mainland protests, experts say | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Inequalities, land grab, Politics, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Fujian, Guangdong, home demolitions, politics, Social conflict, Xiamen

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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