Chinese Air Pollution Deadliest in World

Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing, China
for National Geographic News

July 9, 2007

China, the world's fastest growing economy, has earned another startling superlative: the highest annual incidence of premature deaths triggered by air pollution in the world, according to a new study.

A World Health Organization (WHO) report estimates that diseases triggered by indoor and outdoor air pollution kill 656,000 Chinese citizens each year, and polluted drinking water kills another 95,600. (Related: "China's Pollution Leaving Mountains High and Dry, Study Finds" [March 8, 2007].)

"Air pollution is estimated to cause approximately two million premature deaths worldwide per year," said Michal Krzyzanowski, an air quality adviser at the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

Krzyzanowski worked with WHO to look at costs and casualties of pollution across the globe. He helped the group develop new air quality guidelines that set out global goals to reduce deaths from pollution.

Deadly Air

Damaging air pollutants include sulfur dioxide, particulate matter—a mixture of extremely small particles and water droplets—ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. China accounts for roughly one-third of the global total for these pollutants, according to Krzyzanowski. (See a map of China.)

In neighboring India, air pollution is believed to cause 527,700 fatalities a year. In the United States, premature deaths from toxic air pollutants are estimated at 41,200 annually.

The combustion of fossil fuels—whether to power China's many automobiles, its burgeoning factories, or its expanding megacities—is a primary source of outdoor air pollutants.

The burning of coal or charcoal to heat homes, common throughout China, also produces a range of indoor air pollutants. (Related: "China's Boom Is Bust for Global Environment, Study Warns" [May 16, 2005].)

Air pollution can trigger or worsen a wide spectrum of respiratory and cardiovascular ailments.

WHO's air guidelines warn that pregnant women, the elderly, the sick, and young children are especially susceptible to suffering severe effects from high pollution levels.

The total number of Chinese whose lives are cut short by pollution-triggered diseases aligns closely with the figures that were reportedly left out of a recent World Bank study.

China's State Environmental Protection Agency engineered the removal of the statistics, the Financial Times reported, because the government feared the figures could trigger social unrest.

The World Bank is perceived as a staunch ally to China. The organization has committed roughly 40 billion U.S. dollars, along with expert advice, to projects ranging from rural poverty alleviation to promoting sustainable development.

Yet Internet access to certain World Bank reports on China is now being blocked in Beijing.

An official at the World Bank's headquarters in Washington, D.C.—speaking anonymously for fear of worsening the controversy—said the World Bank is still holding talks with the Chinese government on the final version of the pollution risk report, which is set to be published soon.

"After the [state environmental protection] agency raised questions about our methodology in calculating them, figures on the likely number of deaths per year related to air and water pollution were not included in the draft report—but remain under discussion for the final report," the bank official said.

Reducing Deaths

WHO leaders, meanwhile, say that meeting new targets on clean air, developed in consultation with 80 environmental health experts across the globe, would drastically curtail the number of Chinese pollution deaths.

"The air quality guidelines for the first time address all regions of the world and provide uniform targets for air quality," said WHO's Krzyzanowski.

"These targets are far tougher than the national standards currently applied in many parts of the world—and in some cities would mean reducing current pollution levels by more than three-fold," he added.

Chen Bingheng, a member of the WHO six-country steering committee that developed the new guidelines, said she was recently invited to explain them to leaders of China's environmental protection agency.

Yet Chen, a professor at Fudan University's School of Public Health in Shanghai, added that the guidelines are not legally binding. WHO member states, including China, are free to set their own national standards.

Still, the Chinese capital has a massive incentive to improve air quality for the smog-smothered masses: Beijing pledged to present pristine skies, waterways, and cityscapes during its bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070709-china-pollution.html

XuanMin

In general,traditional family ties are weakening.How is this trend likely to affect your society?

Indeed,as the Singapore society continues to evolve and acclimatize to the rapid globalisation and technological advancements,families are also gradually drifting apart from their main cultural,historical hierarchical roots and religious affliations.No longer do families remain traditionally united under the same household unit.Segregation due to work and studies commitments have forced the fundamental family unit to embrace a more mobile condition of nuclear familiness where members are able to make swift desicion-making procedures without much hassle or consulting elder members to grant permission and acknowledgement.
As much as Singapore is afflicted by such a resurging phenomenon alike other countries, government intervention plays an important role in preserving and strengthening already fragile family ties through hard-line policies focused on establishing strong family and marriage unions such as the annual family week and five-day workweek in hope of improving social stability and stressing the inherent importance of maintaining strong relationships.
A countervailing force seems to distort the preemptive actions to restore normalcy,which is the pervasive gender equality issue.Many more women are receiving tertiary education and climbing the socio-economic ladder toward success against their male counterparts.Together with government support and pro-women socialist groups,emergence of a liberalised and independeent women faction seems viably unstoppable.
As a result,though controversially,most women are delaying marriage and parenthood way past the age of child-bearing.Singapore faces a birth dearth like many other developed countries which is contrarily against the traditional family where extended family line is considerably important especially the male after elder grandparents,providing adequate hospitality and supporting them financially.All the more it destabilises the traditional family unit where members are taken care by heirs.However the decline in archaic living standards and increasingly contemporary lifestyles have outlived these age-old sentiments.Furthermore,the relentless onslaught of materialism has led couples to become potential "money spinners" instead of raising a family.

Moreover,government intervention into social welfarism of the general populace has allowed the relinquishment of household responsibilities such as looking relatives.Resoundingly,the rise of cohabitation,polygamous marriage,monogamous marriage and single-parent family are all major contributing factors of declining familial importance in modern day society.

contributed by SAMUEL TAN.

Culture

Culture refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. In general, the term culture denotes the whole product of an individual, group or society of intelligent beings. It includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems and the characteristic behaviors and habits of the selected intelligent entities. In particular, it has specific more detailed meanings in different domains of human activities.

Many regional cultures have been influenced by contact with others, such as by colonization, trade, migration, mass media and religion.
Africa
Though of many varied origins, African culture, especially Sub-Saharan African culture has been shaped by European colonialism, and, especially in North Africa, by Arab and Islamic culture.

Americas
The culture of the Americas has been strongly influenced by peoples that inhabitated the continents before Europeans arrived; people from Africa (the United States especially has a large African-American population, most of whom are descended from former slaves), and the immigration of Europeans, especially Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, German, Irish, Italian and Dutch.

Asia
Despite the great cultural diversity of Asian nations, there are, nevertheless, several transnational cultural influences. Though Korea, Japan, and Vietnam are not Chinese-speaking countries, their languages have been heavily influenced by Chinese and Chinese writing. Thus, in East Asia, Chinese writing is generally agreed to exert a unifying influence. Religions, especially Buddhism and Taoism have had an impact on the cultural traditions of East Asian countries (see section on Eastern religion and philosophy, below). There is also a shared social and moral philosophy that derives from Confucianism.
Hinduism and Islam have for hundreds of years exerted cultural influence on various peoples of South Asia. Similarly, Buddhism is pervasive in Southeast Asia.

Pacific
Most of the countries of the Pacific Ocean continue to be dominated by their indigenous cultures, although these have generally been affected by contact with European culture. In particular, most of Polynesia is now strongly Christian. Other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand have been dominated by white settlers and their descendants, whose culture now predominates. However Indigenous Australian and Māori (New Zealand) cultures are still present.

Europe
European culture also has a broad influence beyond the continent of Europe due to the legacy of colonialism. In this broader sense it is sometimes referred to as Western culture. This is most easily seen in the spread of the English language and to a lesser extent, a few other European languages. Dominant influences include ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Christianity, although religion has declined in Europe.

Middle East and North Africa
Persia (Iran) has and had for many centuries the biggest influence on Middle Eastern culture. The Persian culture heavily influenced the culture and language of Turks and most other regional countries and later on, Islamic countries and created what is now known as the "Islamic Architecture" which borrows many of its aspects from Persian style of architecture. Perhaps the defining characteristic of the other countries of Middle East and North Africa is Islam and variations of the Arabic language, though this region is also home to Israel and Judaism, and significant Christian minorities. Further, several groups which are adherents to Islam do not consider themselves Arab.

Xuan Min

Chinese Culture

Since not a lot of people write about Chinese cultures, I shall post about that.

Newborn

Chinese people put their family in a very important position as they regard it as a means to keep the family blood stream continuously running. And the running family blood stream maintains the life of the whole nation. That is why children production and breeding in China becomes a focus of all members of families. It is even accepted by them as an essential moral duty. There is a Chinese saying that of all who lack filial piety, the worst is who has no children.
The fact that Chinese people pay great attention to children production and breeding can be supported by many customary practices. Many traditional customs about preproduction of children are all based on the idea of children protection. When a wife is found to be pregnant, people will say she "has happiness," and all her family members will feel overjoyed about it. Throughout the whole period of pregnancy, both she and the fetus are well attended, so that the fetus is not hurt in any way and the new generation is born both physically and mentally healthy. To keep the fetus in a good condition, the going-to-be mother is offered sufficient nutritious foods and some traditional Chinese medicines believed to be helpful to the fetus.
When the baby is born, the mother is required to "zuoyuezi" or stay in bed for a month in order to recover from the fatigue. In this month, she is advised to stay at home and not to go outdoors. Cold, wind, dirty air, and tiredness are said to exert bad effect on her health and thus her later life.
A good name for a child is considered equally important. The Chinese think a name may somehow determine the future of the child. Therefore, all possible factors must be taken into account when they are naming their children.
Traditionally, two parts of a name are essential, the family name or last name and a character showing the generation order of the family. Another character in the first name is chosen as the namer pleases. The generation signing characters in the names are usually given by the forefathers, who chose them from a line of a poem or found their own and put them in the genealogy for their descendents to use. For this reason, it is possible to know the relationships between the family relatives by just looking at their names.
Another custom is to find the newborn baby's Eight Characters (in four pairs, indicating the year, month, day and hour of a person's birth, each pair consisting of one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch, formerly used in fortune-telling) and the element in the Eight Characters. It is traditionally believed in China that the world is made up of five principal elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. A person's name is to include an element that he lacks in his Eight Characters. If he lacks water, for example, then his name is supposed to contain a word like river, lake, tide, sea, stream, rain, or any word associating with water. If he lacks metal, then he is to be given a word like gold, silver, iron, or steel.
Some people even believe that the number of strokes of a name has a lot to do with the owner's fate. So when they name a child, the number of strokes of the name is taken into account.
Some parents prefer to use a character from an eminent person's name, hoping that their child inherits that person's nobility and greatness. Characters with noble and encouraging connotations are also among the first choices. Some parents inject their own wishes into their children's names. When they want to have a boy, they may name their girl Zhaodi meaning expecting a brother.


Shimin

Sorry for copying and paste, because i do not know what to write.
here's the acknowlegdement
http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa021901a.htm

Enjoy! Bye!

Family Problems
Family problems come in all shapes and sizes; some are short-lived and easily managed, while others are more chronic and difficult to handle. Stress points include events such as illness and injury, changing jobs, changing schools, moving and financial difficulties.
Each family develops its own ways of coping with these stresses, some of which work better than others. Unsuccessful coping can be recognized by a number of characteristics, including the following:

Poor Communication
Family members either avoid talking with one another, or have not learned how to listen well to what others are trying to say through their words, expressions or actions.

Inability to Resolve Conflicts and Disagreements
This usually occurs because family members avoid discussing problems or even avoid admitting that problems exist. This allows the conflicts to continue - which, while causing some discomfort and unhappiness, allows the family to avoid what they see as the greater discomfort of facing the problem. Some families just have not learned the skills of negotiating or, for some other reason, cannot let go of bad or hurt feelings. Children are likely to pattern their behavior after their parents' behavior and may learn to refuse to talk about feelings and problems.

Poor Problem-Solving
Family members have trouble deciding what problems really exist, who is responsible, the options for solving them, and how the family can agree upon an option and act upon it. There may not be agreement on what the priorities are within the family.

Poor Division of Responsibilities
Families often have not decided how family responsibilities will be divided among family members. When that happens, family life can become chaotic, and many things do not get accomplished. At the other extreme, some families are not flexible at all, and family members do not help one another out or fairly reassign responsibilities as family circumstances change.

Insufficient Emotional Support
Families are, especially for children, the most important source of emotional support. During the middle years, children find it hard to obtain this emotional support outside the family. Children do not perform or develop well without this support.

Intolerance of Differences
Families function best when the individuality of each family member is acknowledged and appreciated. At the least, even if someone else's personal traits or characteristics are not highly valued, each family member needs to tolerate these traits and respect that individual. When family members withhold love from one another because of personal differences, children are likely to have a difficult time developing a healthy self-image, and they will have low self-esteem and poor social skills.

Overdependency on Others
Children need to succeed in order to feel capable of successfully managing life's stresses and challenges. If they are taught or encouraged to depend on others (within the family or outside it) to solve their problems, they will have low self-esteem and limited initiative and will have trouble succeeding in the world.

Chronic Crises
Families who have some of the above characteristics are likely to have trouble coping with life's inevitable crises. In these families even relatively simple problems are not resolved but take on the appearance and feel of major dilemmas. Thus, by their lack of successful coping skills, these families create additional problems for themselves and go from crisis to crisis, with little relief and little pleasure from life or from one another.
Although we all strive for perfection, there is no perfect family. Each family has its own strengths and weaknesses, assets and liabilities, challenges and problems. If your family seems overwhelmed with problems, or if there is a breakdown in relationships within your family, it is probably time for outside help.
As a parent, your task is to meet the multiple demands of family life with energy and creativity. By doing so, you will enable your children to grow and develop in positive, healthy ways and to experience satisfaction and success.

taken from :http://www.aap.org/pubed/ZZZJOXAF79C.htm?&sub_cat=106

Huimin (:

Family

One of the most distinctive aspects of modern marriage is its emphasis upon personal compatibility and companionship. This notwithstanding, it is also true that mutual role expectations are of considerable importance since the manner in which such are perceived have a profound effect on family functioning and stability. The changing nature of gender roles makes less clear the environment in which bargaining for a partner takes place. Differences between men and women have narrowed. Women have established strong attributes of their own, such as economic contributions and social status to offer in the exchange. Thus, there is a greater emphasis on egalitarian marriage and a broader concept of labors and responsibilities to be shared.Family forms are shaped by the attitudes toward gender roles in a given society which, in turn, are influenced by the demographic, social, economic, and political realities of the time. The traditional family, idealized during the Victorian era and reestablished in the 1950s, is identified as a unit consisting of a married couple with two or more children where the breadwinning father goes out to work while the mother stays home to keep house and care for the children and her husband. This profile of the family, which reflected and was supported by the prevailing attitudes and realities of a particular period which no longer exists, continues to be lauded, endorsed, and longed for by right wing politicians and religious groups. However, due to the major socio-cultural changes of the past three decades, a variety of family forms has emerged and now the traditional family accounts for "only 5 percent of American households."


Economic Opportunity


In the traditional family, men were socialized to develop instrumental behaviors and women were socialized to develop expressive behaviors. This insured that, while men had direct access to economic opportunity and independence, women were always dependent on their husbands for social and economic rewards.As access to economic opportunity is a source of power and prestige in all societies, it follows that women lacked this power and prestige because of their confinement to the domestic sphere. In order for women to achieve equality of status with men, it was imperative that they participate in paid employment in the public sphere and that they have some degree of economic independence. With this emphasis on changing their role, unprecedented numbers of women have not only joined the labor force since 1960 but have also become highly educated and have won the right to compete with men in all areas of professional, business, and public life. However, even though women have achieved equality of status through education, occupation, and income, a corresponding change in men's roles has been slow to develop. While men have supported the changing role of women, at least in areas in which it benefits them, many have allowed their wives to continue to take full responsibility for the domestic sphere in addition to their sharing in the breadwinning role and have failed to see that "to be effective, change must move in two directions: men must share in domestic and childrearing tasks even as women share in the world of outside work.

Marriage

Traditionally, a man and a woman became involved in a steady dating relationship as a preparation for marriage. Men looked for partners whose physical appearance would enhance their image, and women looked for partners whose achievements, financially and socially, would provide security and social status. These choices reflected the self- identity of both parties: women saw themselves in terms of their physical attributes with their future role revolving around the needs and desires of their husbands; men saw themselves in terms of their accomplishments and career prospects, with an additional future role as breadwinner and head of his family.In the past three decades, all of this has changed as feminist- minded women emphasize their own instrumental as well as expressive qualities, and look for more expressive and intellectual qualities in the men they choose for long-term relationships. Men who are open to more egalitarian gender roles focus less on physical qualities and more on the expressive and intellectual qualities of women. Women's sense of autonomy is also evident in their tendency "to initiate dates and to share date expenses." Feminist-minded women no longer wait to be chosen, they choose for themselves the men they want to be with in exclusive relationships. Marriage is not necessarily the goal of long-term relationships in today's world. "Individuals are expected to be deeply committed to the current serious relationship in an exclusive dating partnership, a living-together arrangement, or a socially recognized marriage." When couples decide to marry, they do so in the belief that it will provide the rewards and satisfactions they seek in terms of both instrumental and expressive exchanges.

Autonomy versus Intimacy

In traditional relationships, men had autonomy and authority while women had neither. Women were expected to be submissive and subservient, without the right to their own opinions, feelings or needs. In modern relationships based on equality of gender roles, female and male autonomy are of equal importance, and intimacy, the mutual sharing of the being of each partner, is of vital importance to the continual development and deepening of mutual trust and love. According to Scarf, each partner not only brings herself or himself to the relationship but also the influences of known and unknown family backgrounds which have a profound bearing on the struggle between autonomy and intimacy in the relationship. Each person in a relationship needs space to be a person in his/her own right, to pursue independent goals which meet his/her independent needs. Each one also has intimacy needs, the need to set aside time for the sharing of oneself in love and closeness with the other. However, despite the modern emphasis on equality of gender roles, both men and women are still influenced by the traditional gender-role conditioning which demanded that women be the love- and caregivers to their highly-sexed, emotionless husbands and that men be the strong, male providers for their fragile, emotional wives. Women feel guilty about having autonomous needs and feel they should be always available to provide the love and the closeness in the relationship, while men feel they should be strong and independent and cannot admit to their need for love and closeness.For both men and women, the struggle is also in the questions: how much they can give of each other to each other in intimacy without losing their autonomy, without being absorbed into the identity of the other; and, how can they "be intimate without exposing yourself to the terrible possibility of rejection and abandonment?"

Today, the struggle between autonomy and intimacy is part and parcel of the deepening and development of mature, loving relationships

Xuan Min

Family & Marriages

The family is the building block of society. When marriages and families are healthy, communities thrive; when marriages break down, communities break down.
http://www.heritage.org/research/family/index.cfm..

Pros and cons of marriages and family....

Pros:
-Benefits of Healthy Marriages for Communities

Higher rates of physically healthy citizens
Higher rates of emotionally healthy citizens
Higher rates of educated citizens in terms of moral values
Lower domestic violence rates
Lower crime rates as parents transfer healthy moral values since young
Lower teen age pregnancy rates
Higher rates of home ownership
Lower rates of migration
Decreased need for social services
People in the families tend to live longer due to happiness
Helping hands at home when you need help
People to care for you
Children become more open-minded

Cons:
Lose individuality.
Cant be alone when you really need to be alone as people in the house are too concern
about you.
Disruption in privacy
Lots of noise. you cant concentrate on what you are doing
Disrespect and discipline


i think that is all.. here's the acknowledgement....
www.yahoo.com
www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/benefits/index.html

ENJOY!!!


Shimin