May 18:
China and Kazakhstan have agreed to “improve cooperation in [the area of] information exchange as part of the fight against international drug business, transnational crime and illegal migration,” Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reports. Lt-Gen Adil Shayakhmetov, head of national security in K azakhstan, is in Beijing to sign a series of cooperation agreements with China's Minister of Public Security, Meng Jianzhu, and Minister of State Security, Geng Huichang.
May 19:
Women have become the newest target customers of state-run tobacco companies hocking cigarettes with colorful packages and fruit flavors. In 2002, 3.1% of women were smokers, now it’s nearing 15%, the number of Chinese women with lung cancer has risen 30% over the last five years, and 70% are suffering from secondhand smoke. At a Capital Medical University conference to raise anti-smoking awareness Li Xinhua, a division chief with the Ministry of Health, said 66% of all Chinese men are smokers, meaning the market is already saturated. “That means around 50% of men will die before they are 65 years old and the tobacco companies will be forced to cultivate a new market among women,” Li said. China has 350 million smokers, 540 million people are suffering from secondhand smoke, and the number that died of lung cancer rose 50% in urban areas over the last five years. “Out of all the Chinese people killed by cancer, 87% had lung cancer,” the official China Daily reports.
[Editor’s note: In 2003, China signed the UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into effect in 2005. In line with the convention, China should ban tobacco advertising, enforce laws to ban smoking in public and raise taxes on tobacco by January 2011. Yet, China's tobacco volume has continued to spike, accounting for one-third of tobacco production worldwide.]
May 23:
With Europe and the U.S. set to ban mercury exports and demand soaring for use in gold-mining and energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs (each of which contain 2 to 5 mg of mercury), the price of the highly toxic metal has risen from $600 per 34.5kg at the end of 2009 to more than $1000 this week. Driven by poverty, miners are returning to the mercury mines in Guizhou and Hunan, which were reopened despite the heavy environmental consequences. Many residents in the region suffer from mercury poisoning, with symptoms such as headaches, quivers, bleeding gums, and psychological disturbances. According to a 2004 report by Guizhou's deputy environmental chief between 1994 and 2004, 745 tons of mercury vaporized into the air, 40 tons went into rivers and 450 tons was ditched among waste residue on land. The mercury concentration in produce grown in the region far exceeds levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization, the South China Morning Post reports.
May 25:
Beginning in September, seventy-three private universities and vocational institutions in Taiwan will, for the first time, enroll students from mainland China. About 1,000 mainland students have already applied to study in Taiwan’s universities, which plan to recruit a total of 2,000 mainland students. Mainland students are eligible when their institution gives them a high political awareness certificate. The China Senior College Exhibition Organization Committee started processing the applications on April 1 and will finish at the end of May, the official China Daily reports.
May 29:
President Hu Jintao has announced that a national healthcare system is an “important mission of building an all-round well-off society and China’s modernization drive.” Hu specified “five priority tasks” for reforming China’s medical and healthcare system: provide basic medical coverage to all Chinese; ensure safe, affordable basic drugs; strengthen and allot more manpower, technology, and funds to grassroots public health services; prevent the outbreak of diseases; and promote pilot reform projects in public hospitals. Hu said: “Building an efficient basic medical and health system that provides the people with safe, effective, convenient and inexpensive medical and health services is a responsibility the party and the government must not shirk.” He said China’s goal was that “each and every one in the country will be able to enjoy basic medical and health services,” the official Xinhua News Agency reports.
[Editor’s note: The quoted in this clip brief were taken from the Chinese language version of the Xinhua report. I have included the link to an abridged English version.]
