Are care and compassion no longer considered of importance in a nurse?
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
Nurses seem to ignore basic needs (Photo: Getty)
Following the shocking revelation this week that doctors are being forced to prescribe water for their hospital patients – because the nurses cannot be relied upon to “nurse” their patients and ensure that the elderly eat and drink – I looked again at the many emails sent to me on the subject of poor treatment of the elderly by hospital staff.
Every single one of them describes how the elderly person became dehydrated in hospital, either because the nurses and care assistants did not bother to check whether or not the patient was drinking the water provided, or – because the patient’s dementia caused spillage – the water was removed altogether but no nurse nor carer remembered to offer water on a regular basis.
As we all know, dehydration in babies or the elderly has to be taken extremely seriously. Surely it is as important to note the amount drunk or eaten by a patient, as it is to record when the medication is taken? There are examples of patients literally starving to death in NHS wards.
I wonder – would these uncaring and unprofessional nurses treat a baby in this way? I doubt it. I suspect that these nurses think you are over 65, therefore you have had your life and now you are just a nuisance. Would they allow their relatives to be treated so badly?
In February, the Health Ombudsman – Ann Abraham – published her Care and Compassion Report. She studied ten cases: eight were complaints about hospital care and two about GP care. The hospitals involved were Ealing; Royal Bolton; Southampton University; Heart of England; Oxford Radcliffe; Ashford and St. Peter’s; Surrey and Borders Partnership; Northern Lincolnshire and Goole; but the report recognised that these were in no way isolated examples. Patients are experiencing a similar lack of care in every NHS Trust. She describes the serious complaints as “sickening”. To read her report, go to www.ombudsman.org.uk/care-and-compassion/home.
Ten reasons why the China doubters are so very wrong
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
http://gulfnews.com/business/opinion/ten-reasons-why-the-china-doubters-are-so-very-wrong-1.814524
Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/©Gulf News
The China doubters are back in force. They seem to come in waves — every few years or so. Yet, year in and year out, China has defied the naysayers and stayed the course, perpetuating the most spectacular development miracle of modern times. That seems likely to continue.
Today’s feverish hand-wringing reflects a confluence of worries — especially concerns about inflation, excess investment, soaring wages, and bad bank loans. Prominent academics warn that China could fall victim to the dreaded “middle-income trap,” which has derailed many a developing nation.
There is a kernel of truth to many of the concerns cited above, especially with respect to the current inflation problem. But they stem largely from misplaced generalisations. Here are ten reasons why it doesn’t pay to diagnose the Chinese economy by drawing inferences from the experiences of others:
Strategy: Since 1953, China has framed its macro objectives in the context of five-year plans, with clearly defined targets and policy initiatives designed to hit those targets. The recently enacted 12th Five-Year Plan could well be a strategic turning point ushering in a shift from the highly successful producer model of the past 30 years to a flourishing consumer society.
Commitment: Seared by memories of turmoil, reinforced by the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, China’s leadership places the highest priority on stability. Such a commitment served China extremely well in avoiding collateral damage from the crisis of 2008-2009. It stands to play an equally important role in driving the fight against inflation, asset bubbles, and deteriorating loan quality.
Wherewithal to deliver: China’s commitment to stability has teeth. More than 30 years of reform have unlocked its economic dynamism. Enterprise and financial-market reforms have been key, and many more reforms are coming. Moreover, China has shown itself to be a good learner from past crises, and shifts course when necessary.
Afghan children killed in Nato bombing
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3230255.htm
PETER CAVE: At least 14 civilians, 12 of them said to be children, have died in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in a night time air strike by coalition forces.
A furious president Hamid Karzai has condemned the killings. Mr Karzai said his government had repeatedly asked the US to stop raids which end up killing Afghan civilians and this, he said, was his last warning.
I spoke to the ABC’s Afghanistan correspondent Sally Sara in Kabul.
SALLY SARA: The relatives of some of the children who were killed actually took the bodies of these children to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and put them on display outside the governor’s compound there so that local officials and the media could see what had happened.
What often goes on is that there are disputes about these air strikes because under Islamic custom the victims are buried before sunset and it is often difficult to verify so this is a very deliberate act on behalf of these relatives to make sure people could see what had happened.
They are saying that there had been a US air strike in their district after insurgents had attacked a base of US marines, an air strike was called in but unfortunately according to local officials it was mainly children who were the victims of this strike.
PETER CAVE: Do we know what was the actual target of the strike?
SALLY SARA: It is unclear. The big problem, Peter, in Afghanistan is that there is no separate battlefield. A lot of the fighting goes on amongst the compounds and the villages and the fields and the insurgents often fire from and are fired upon residential compounds and in Helmand as in other parts of the country, coalition forces deliberately put their patrol bases close to the population. That is where they need to be to try and connect and protect this population but it also mean unfortunately that when the firing starts, often the insurgents and the coalition forces are in very close proximity to civilians.
PETER CAVE: What’s president Karzai had to say?
SALLY SARA: His office has released a statement saying that he is now giving his last warning to US-led forces in Afghanistan on the issue of civilian casualties. He has delivered a very angry response to what has happened saying that the air strike was unnecessary and that it was a great mistake. He is talking about the murder of Afghan women and children.
So it is a very sensitive political issue and these incidents now, in the middle of the spring offensive, as fighting is escalating in many parts of the country, there is an unfortunate expectation that this won’t be the last.
PETER CAVE: Talking about that acceleration in the spring offensive, the Taliban have managed to take out a leading police chief in the north of the country.
SALLY SARA: That’s right. On Saturday there was a suicide bombing inside the governor’s compound in the northern province of Takhar. A very prominent and respected regional police commander, General Mohammed Daud Daud was killed in that attack. So he was a former northern alliance commander, also a former deputy interior minister involved in the anti-narcotics branch. He was very outspoken against the Taliban and against drug lords.
His death has affected a lot of people. Thousands of people turned out for his funeral and it was a worrying sign that in what is normally regarded as a quiet province of Afghanistan, that Taliban insurgents were able to get into what should be a highly secured compound at the governor’s complex and carry out this attack.
PETER CAVE: Sally Sara in Kabul.
Archbishop of Canterbury questions Take That comeback
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
Rowan (left) and Robbie Williams
The Archbishop of Canterbury today voiced doubts about Take That’s reunion tour, suggesting that “society has become too fixated on trying to recapture the aesthetic experiences of yesteryear, thus distracting us from the very real challenges of living in the here and now”.
Dr Rowan Williams, who yesterday intervened in the debate over celebrity superinjunctions, told this blog that “entertainment rooted in the adolescent psyche of a generation is by its nature transitory, and cannot be artifically revived without the risk of disorientating that generation once it reaches early middle age”.
He added: “The revival of early 1990s boy bands is, of course, a classic instance of this. Speaking personally, I find that Take That’s new tour raises many of the dilemmas that, mutatis mutandis, haunt other celebrity comebacks. One cannot but think of Pulp, whose failure to recapture their iconic status threatens to undermine their original legacy – and of Britney, of course, to say nothing of Lord Carey of Clifton, whose public pronouncements appear to imply that he still has his old job.
“Moreover – and here I make no apology for raising questions of showbusiness ethics that the Churches are perhaps unnecessarily timid in addressing – is it really fair that Robbie Williams is retaining separate management and press representation for a tour that is supposed to represent a true and equal sharing of relationships? Is this the koinonia of which the Church Fathers spoke?”
Power crisis may force China to face inflation demons
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/27/us-china-power-idUSTRE74Q0T520110527
A truck carrying a man drives past electricity wires near a coal-fired power plant, in Beijing May 24, 2011. Reuters Image
(Reuters) – Confronting a huge and growing power crisis, China faces a painful choice: either allow a summer of blackouts or swallow a dose of inflation.
The shortage, which has brought electricity cuts for big power consumers and a spate of emergency measures, was avoidable and foreseen by many economists and analysts.
It is not that China lacks the generation capacity to meet demand. Instead, analysts point to a lopsided electricity sector in which government controls starve producers of price rises so that manufacturers can guzzle cheap power.
That has created the worst power shortage in seven years as producers restrict output to make ends meet. The shortage is set to worsen as electricity demand rises during the peak summer months just as hydropower capacity has been hit by drought.
“This is going to be a big one, and it’s compounded by the fact that power companies are losing money for producing,” said Credit Suisse economist Dong Tao. “It is going to be a pretty sticky situation for growth and it will also add to inflationary pressure.”
The only real solution is for the government to raise prices, giving producers an incentive to increase power output, and then to tighten the monetary reins to prevent inflation from seeping into the economy.
The power deficit could exceed 30-40 gigawatts during the summer peak season, the State Grid Corporation of China says.
To put that in perspective, even if all the power plants in Argentina were plugged into China, it would not be quite enough to cover the shortage.
The drought has left water in some of the country’s biggest hydropower producing regions at critical levels just when output should be peaking. During May to October last year, hydropower generated a fifth of China’s electricity generation.
Some economists think the power shortages will be serious enough to slow China’s booming economic growth, which topped 10 percent last year.
Others see no impact, with an expected slowdown in the economy in the second half of the year easing the imbalance between supply and demand.
“The power shortage will cut industrial output (growth) in the second quarter by 0.5 percentage point, and cut GDP growth by 0.2 percentage point,” said Gao Shanwen, chief economist at China Essence Securities in Beijing.
Industrial Securities, a brokerage, said the drag on full-year economic growth could be twice as big at 0.4 percentage point should a 30 GW deficit last from June to August.
Biggest consumer opportunity in history
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
By Naomi Simson
I am in Beijing this week for an educational event. It is great to see first-hand what we hear so much about in the media. The last time I visited Beijing was in 1986, only a decade after the Cultural Revolution, when tourists used a different currency – and there was no hot showers. It is almost unrecognisable as the Beijing I visited 25 years ago.
Yesterday we attended an insightful presentation at the local Neilsen office – the largest consumer research company in China. They gave us a fascinating insight into the 14 distinct geographical markets. We see China as one country, however there are massive differences between the north, south, east and west in terms of consumerism and lifestyle.
Neilsen described the impact of the one child policy after 30 years – the creation of the “little emperor” culture, where effectively six adults are caring for one child, but as the population ages, that one child will need to take care of those six adults in their old age.
This is the fastest growing consumer economy in the world. Never, in the history of time has an economy changed, grown and developed so quickly. I am amazed that every luxury brand is represented – Rolls Royce apparently sells more vehicles in Beijing in a month than they do in the rest of the world.
We had lunch with a local family – in their Hutong. They got electricity just prior to the Olympics – until that time they used coal for heating. People tell us how serious the Government now is about the environment.
The pollution has definitely improved since I was last here. The infrastructure to allow the 19 million Beijing people to move around is phenomenal. They have built 220kms of subway under Beijing and there is another 180kms to go until it is finished. The city was putrid when I was last here – now the streets are spotless. Our local host told me that was because of SARS and the Government decided to clean the streets… and keep them clean.
No wonder Australian businesses get so excited doing business with China. The shear opportunity in size is overwhelming.
What an exciting place.
A girl is allowed an iPod in her school exams. Next the students will be allowed to compare answers
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
Soon it will be exams in iPod booths (Photo: Alamy)
We have all heard stories of dyslexic children being thought of as stupid and consequently being ignored at school. Over the years, the misdiagnosis of conditions like dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism has improved. The only problem is that now there is a whole list of other disorders that help us to categorise our youngsters almost like cattle that are only prepared to choose between various dole queues. Our children have attention deficit disorder or attention hyperactivity deficit disorder, or anger management issues, or school action, or school action plus for behaviour difficulties or SEBD (Social, Emotional, and Behaviour Difficulties) for those who cannot figure out how to sit on a chair.
I thought we were knee-deep in the extremes of lunacy, until I discovered that now we have children who must be allowed to listen to music on their iPods while taking their exams.
A girl at The Mary Erskine School for girls – a private boarding school in Edinburgh – is going to be allowed to listen to her iPod while taking her exams. She simply cannot cope with silence. The school initially refused to allow the girl’s request and her parents took the case to the Scottish Qualifications Authority. SQA supported the school’s decision to uphold the rule of no iPods in exams, but eventually had to back down in the face of threatened legal action under the Equalities Act. So while it has been decided that it would be unreasonable to ask the girl to take exams in silence, it would, however, be “reasonable” to ask the state to foot the bill to grant her request.
The girl must take her exams separately, because the music coming from her earphones will disturb other candidates. One can only assume there is a requirement, then, that she listen to this music at ear-drum bursting volume. She will therefore require different invigilators, at least two or three, not to mention the work that goes into checking the iPod before the exam, to ensure that the music tracks do not contain information that would be deemed as cheating material. In fact, it is said that teachers themselves might have to upload the music tracks onto the iPod for the girl, requiring even more time.
Rare earths dispute
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
China has further tightened its grip on the rare earths market, raising taxes on the minerals. AFP Photo
BEIJING — China has further tightened its grip on the rare earths market, raising taxes on the minerals vital to high-tech industry and banning new projects to produce the metals via separation.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, also said late Thursday that it would prohibit any increase in production capacity for existing projects to separate rare earths from crude ores.
The commerce ministry had said earlier that it would expand export quotas for rare earths to include iron alloys containing more than 10 percent of the elements from Friday.
The coordinated announcements bolstered a campaign by Beijing to strengthen control over the highly sought-after metals — 17 elements critical to manufacturing everything from iPods to electric cars and missiles.
The State Council said the new policies would “promote the sustainable and healthy development of the rare earth sector”, which has become increasingly important given Beijing’s near-monopoly on production.
The government will “significantly reduce” the number of rare earth mining and separating enterprises via merger and acquisition — an effort that is seemingly aimed at strengthening the pricing power of producers, it said.
The State Council also said it would further raise the threshold for companies applying for export quotas and “severely punish” firms that resell the increasingly valuable quotas.
China produces more than 95 percent of the world’s rare earths and Beijing has started cleaning up the industry by closing illegal mines, setting tougher environmental standards and restricting exports.
The government has cut rare earth exports for the first half of 2011 by 35 percent compared to a year earlier, having slashed the quota by 72 percent for the second half of last year.
In April, it also raised the tax on rare earth ores to 30-60 yuan ($4.6-9.2) per tonne from the previous 0.4-3.0 yuan per tonne.
The moves have prompted complaints from foreign high-tech producers as the prices of rare earth metals surged on average by about 130 percent last year.
The United States and Australia have responded by developing or reopening mines shuttered when cheaper Chinese supplies became available.
In December a Japanese trading house announced it would build a plant for processing rare earth minerals in India in a bid to bypass China’s stranglehold on the market with an annual 4,000-ton production target.
Give us more than a break, remove the charity hurdles
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
We'd all be generous, if the Government removed the obstacles (Photo: Alamy)
The most memorable charity do I’ve ever attended was held by a Jewish friend of mine in Manhattan. She was raising funds for a new wing for Columbia Presbyterian hospital, and had invited 100 friends to a gala dinner.
The MC was ruthless. Microphone in hand, he wandered from table to table, soliciting donations by naming and shaming: “Sol Levinson, let me hear how much you’re giving tonight? What?! Only $5,000, when we know you live in a penthouse worth $10 million? Come on, you can do better than that. And if you can’t, Aaron here can. What will you give me Aaron, for this great cause?” It worked: in a tight-knit group, competition plus humiliation are powerful incentives.
Prodding an entire nation to give, though, is a bit more challenging. The Government hopes to do just that in today’s White Paper, which offers greater tax breaks for legacy givers, tax relief for investors in disadvantaged areas, and Gift Aid reform.
Tinkering with tax breaks may get the wealthy elite to put their hands in their pockets a bit more often; it may mean that Dame Vivien Duffield will top her £8.2 million donation to “cultural learning” and that Oxford University will raise £1.5 billion instead of £1 billion in its next fund-raising exercise. But to stir the nation’s generosity, the Government needs to take down the obstacles that stand in the way of those who want to give not only money but also time.
Cameron’s price for saving his Coalition: the destruction of Britain
(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)
Even if he does go now, so what? His vile work is done
Is David Cameron such a blindingly brilliant, gorgeous, lovely, magnificent, visionary, fragrant Prime Minister that he makes Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher look like invisible cockroach pigmies of so little consequence I can’t even begin to find a metaphor for their utter relative inconsequentiality when compared with this mighty Corialanus-meets-Julius-Caesar colossus of superlative magnficence?” some columnists are asking.
Let me explain briefly, with reference to the main story in today’s Observer, why he is not.
The story could, I suppose, be a flier: a handy leak from the left wing of the Coalition to give the libtard press an excuse to write something “positive” about Chris Huhne to cover up the story that everyone else is writing about the embattled Energy and Climate Change Secretary.
But if what it says is even half way true, then David Cameron has made the most unforgivably damaging decision of his entire political career. It will delay our economic recovery, lay waste the British countryside and cement Cameron’s reputation as a man driven not by principle (as, say, Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill were) but by a grubby, son-of-Blair urge to keep clinging on to power at no matter what cost to the country at large.
