The environment in the news thursday, 22 May 2008
Bowing in Grief, to Public Demand
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Bowing in Grief, to Public DemandBy Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING, May 20 (IPS) - The national mourning observed this week for victims of the Sichuan earthquake is the first public remembrance in modern China’s history ordered to commemorate ordinary people rather than political leaders. At 2:28 on Monday afternoon, exactly a week after the quake hit the remote hillsides of southwestern China, the country came to a standstill, mourning the 50,000 people estimated to have perished in the tragedy. Flags flew at half-mast, air-raid sirens wailed and motorists blew their horns in a deafening crescendo. The last time the country observed such an official mourning ritual, silencing all music and closing all entertainment venues was after the death of communist China’s founding father, Mao Zedong, in 1976. If China felt divided and isolated then, mourning its dead paramount leader who had inflicted years of famine and chaos on the nation, it seems united now in grieving for the quake victims. In the aftermath of the quake when every day brought news of mounting death toll, the need for shared grief, for a shared moment to bid farewell to the departed had grown too. Bloggers had called for a collective expression of mourning two days after the May 12 quake. On several websites there were calls for the national flag to be lowered and for the Olympic torch relay to be suspended. In the face of so much death, the ostentatious scenes of carnival-like processions accompanying the torch’s relay in China were offensive to many."Let us show some humanity," is how one blogger defined the public’s need for solemnity. Bowing to public calls, the government has now declared three days of official mourning, closing cinemas and karaoke clubs, cancelling entertainment shows on TV and ordering all state newspapers to publish editions in black. For many what is happening these days, as the leadership displays a rare affinity to listen to what the public wants, is truly a novelty. "They (the leaders) showed that they can hear us and take a cue," says elderly Zhang Ruixiang as she observes her granddaughter play in the park. "For ordinary people like us there is not much one can do but show solidarity with the survivors and they have allowed us to do it. I feel grateful". Inadvertently or not the government has managed to skillfully exploit the disaster to shore up public support and burnish its reputation. "The outside world has had a chance to see a truly admirable side of the Chinese nation -- the courage of a grand nation," is how Zhang Guoqing, international relations scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, appraises the international reverberations to China’s quake. At home though, the test has only now begun. Even as the mourning seems to have put pressing questions of responsibility on hold, concerns have been raised publicly about the staggering numbers of children and youngsters that perished. Allowing the TV to report live from the scene of the disaster and letting voices of survivors be heard all over the country, the government has been unable to disguise the fact that schools and hospitals were among the first buildings that gave in to the destructive force of the quake. In Mianyang city alone, seven schools collapsed, burying 1,700 people. Another 700 students were buried in the nearby town of Hanwang when their school building crumbled. Altogether, 6,898 school buildings have been destroyed by the quake, according to Han Jin, head of the development and planning department of the Ministry of Education. The implications of the destruction look so grave that Yunnan province, which borders quake-hit Sichuan, has ordered the demolition of all school buildings considered unstable. The government has promised full investigation once the rescue work is completed. "If quality problems do exist in the school buildings, those found responsible will be dealt with severely," Jiang Weixin, a top housing official threatened at a press conference over the weekend. Former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji -- well-known for his acerbic language and blunt rhetoric -- once famously described buildings in the Chinese countryside as "doufuzha" (bean curd residue) projects. He was hitting at the well-known but never uprooted corruption where developers work hand-in-glove with local officials to flout safety codes for their own enrichment. While the authorities have managed to organise what president Hu Jintao called an "all out" rescue effort, the future days present an even bigger test for the leadership when Beijing starts to look for answers to what part of the disaster was man-made. For one, the extensive coverage of the earthquake has also revealed that, apart from children and youngsters, a large number of victims were migrant labourers, living in hamlets and shacks that caved in when the quake struck. That element of public distress was evident from the letters received by newspapers from readers asking the media to cover the plight of ordinary people rather than the acts of state leaders. "At times of natural disasters the role of national leaders is irreplaceable," said one letter sent to the Southern Weekend, "but in the face of such great tragedy we must connect more with the people in suffering". http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42429 …………………………………………… President Triet warns: get ready for climate change(21-05-2008) Workers build a dike along Tra Khuc River in Quang Ngai. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Long HA NOI — President Nguyen Minh Triet has told all Vietnamese to be prepared for the effects of climate change. Triet was addressing the nation on Monday, the 62nd national day for dyke management, flood prevention and control of storms and disasters. In a letter, he said Viet Nam had already suffered some of the effects of global climate change and that storms and floods in the north, centre and south were worse than in recent years. The President said the disaster was complicated and unpredictable, so all ministries, sectors and localities must educate people about the situation and create programmes to handle it. The Government instructed provinces to intensify safety measures against storms that are forecast to lash the country this year. In an online meeting with leaders from 34 coastal provinces last weekend, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai in Ha Noi ordered them to focus on evacuation, stockpiling food and medicines, and rescue efforts. He said natural disasters already cost the nation one per cent of GDP each year. He warned that six to eight powerful storms could hit Viet Nam this year, and told coastal provinces to maintain a vigil to minimise losses. At the meeting, a speaker from the National Steering Committee for Prevention and Fighting Storms and Floods said Mekong Delta provinces should speed up the fortification of coastal dykes, houses, bridges, and roads so that they could withstand big storms. Hai said the Government would immediately improve water and power supplies to disaster-relief centres in the Mekong Delta. The director of the Central Meteorology and Hydrology Forecasting Centre, Bui Minh Tang, said the Mekong Delta shared many similarities with the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar which was devastated by Cyclone Nargis this month. The Mekong Delta also had no protection from rising seawater. In Myanmar, flooding rather than winds caused most deaths, he said, adding that the Delta could face a disaster if a cyclone the size of Nargis struck. The Government called on weather officials to issue prompt warnings about possible storms, floods, flash floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis. It instructed the Construction Ministry to ensure safety for schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and other public structures. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat expressed concern about the lack of preparations by delta provinces against big storms. Hai agreed to a proposal made by the National Committee for Research and Rescue to establish a large fleet of vessels for search and rescue and to create a professional rescue force. Long An and An Giang provincial authorities asked the Government for funds to upgrade protective infrastructure, such as coastal dykes and river embankments. Phat called on local authorities to protect river dykes from erosion and to establish evacuation plans to protect human life and property losses. Deputy Health Minister Cao Minh Quang said at a World Health meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday that natural disasters created health emergencies in large parts of Viet Nam. Last week, rain caused a landslide in Ha Long City, causing large boulders to roll down mountainsides, blocking traffic in Quang Ninh Province. Rain also destroyed two houses and partly damaged eight others in the town of Cam Pha in the same province. In the southern province of Bac Lieu, rain and a whirlwind destroyed 51 houses. — VNS http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01ENV210508 …………………………………………… Directory: cpi -> briefs briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news Download 457.62 Kb. 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