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BISHKEK/MOSCOW
INT37International/DisasterDeath toll in Kyrgyzstan earthquake rises to 65 LeadBishkek/Moscow, Oct 6 DPA The death toll in the 6.6-magnitude earthquake that hit southern Kyrgyzstan last night rose to 65, the emergency ministry said Monday.More than 50 people were also injured in the devastating quake that wrecked dozens of homes in the rural and mountainous southern province of Osh of the Central Asian state, the ministry said, adding that rescue workers were still searching for survivors under the rubble. The epicentre of the quake was located 65 km southeast of Sary-Tash, a village at the corner of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China, the US Geological Survey said.The quake measured 6.6 on the Richter scale, hit at 9:52 p.m. and was at a depth of 35 km, it said.Most of the casualties occurred in the mountain town of Nura along Kyrgyzstan's border with China, where at least 120 homes were destroyed, Kamchibek Tashiev, an emergency ministry spokesman, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.The village of Nura is "almost completely destroyed," said Tashiev. "Getting aid to victims is made difficult by the remoteness of the villages which were affected by the earthquake... the nearest point providing medical aid is 76 km from Nura," he said. Earthquakes are frequent in the region. A 6.0-magnitude quake jolted the nearby Uzbek capital of Tashkent this August but it wrought little damage.--DPAskp/dg252 Words*06101342
2008-10-06 04:00:00
Gujarat experts to prepare rehabilitation plan for flood-hit Bihar
NAT17National/DisasterGujarat experts to prepare rehabilitation plan for flood-hit BiharPatna, Oct 6 IANS A team of experts from Gujarat will help the Bihar government prepare a strategy for rehabilitation of flood victims, which will be on the lines of the assistance plan following the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, officials said Monday.The team of experts from Gujarat would reach here Tuesday."The team will spend 10 days in the flood affected areas of five districts to study the ground conditions and plan a strategy for rehabilitation," an official of the state disaster management department said.The team will deliver its presentation at a programme of the Bihar Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development BIPARD here.According to sources in planning and development department, the visiting team comprises of officials who were involved in rehabilitation work in the wake of the 2001 earthquake.Disaster Management Minister Nitish Mishra said rehabilitating over three million flood victims was "a herculean task"."The state government plans to adopt the rehabilitation pattern used for victims of the tsunami as well as Gujarat's earthquake," he said.Last month, a team of Bihar officials, led by the development commissioner, visited Gujarat to to study the model of rehabilitation and reconstruction post-earthquake.Later, the team also visited tsunami-affected Tamil Nadu for studying the rehabilitation schemes and preparing a plan for the flood victims.The state government will also be helped by the UN Development Programme UNDP for rehabilitation and reconstruction in the flood-affected districts."A UNDP team has completed a field survey to assess the damage by the flood and it will submit report to the government soon," an official said.Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has demanded Rs.89.23 billion $2 billion from the central government for the rehabilitation of the flood-hit people in September.In August, the prime minister had termed the Bihar flood a national calamity and sanctioned Rs.10 billion for relief efforts. He also announced the release of 125,000 tonnes of food grains for flood victims.More than three million people were rendered homeless and over one million cattle were affected by floods as the Kosi river changed its course following a breach in an embankment upstream in Nepal on Aug 18.The shifting river engulfed large swathes of Bihar, India's second most populous state. The floods have claimed over 191 lives, according to official estimates. However, voluntary agencies fear the number could be in thousands once all bodies are recovered.Officials said 993,992 people have been evacuated to safer places till date. About 370,000 people have taken shelter in over 300 relief camps in flood-affected areas.The state agriculture department has estimated that standing crops in 175,000 hectares of land have been destroyed in Madhepura, Supaul, Saharsa, Araria and Purnea districts.Officials engaged in the rescue and relief operations said most flood-affected, homeless people were now living on high-rise places like embankments and highways apart from overcrowded relief camps set up by the government and NGOs.An official said the state government had prepared a preliminary report on damages caused by the flood. "But the real assessment of damages and losses will come to light after floodwaters recede fully by the second week of October," the official said. --Indo-Asian News Service ik/sh/dg581 Words06101351
2008-10-06 04:00:09
MOSCOW/BISHKEK
INT17International/DisasterAt least 58 killed in Kyrgyzstan earthquakeMoscow/Bishkek, Oct 6 DPA A powerful 6.6-magnitude earthquake that hit the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan Sunday has killed up to 58 people, the US Geological Survey and Russian media reports said early Monday. The quake hit at 9:52 p.m. Sunday near the Chinese and Tajik borders, with the epicentre 55 km east-south-east of Sary-Tash, Kyrgyzstan at a depth of 35 km. The civil ministry said 58 people were killed and dozens injured in the devastating quake, according to Interfax news agency.--DPAskp/jg95 Words*06101038
2008-10-06 01:00:09
Strong earthquake jolts central Afghanistan
INT14International/DisasterStrong earthquake jolts central AfghanistanKabul, Oct 6 DPA A strong earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted central Afghanistan early Monday morning, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the US Geological Survey said. The epicentre was located about 70 km southeast of capital Kabul and was 35 km deep, the centre said in its website. Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountainous region, where seismic activity is high, is often hit by earthquakes. More than 70,000 were killed in a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in neighbouring Pakistan in October 2005.--DPAskp/jg101 Words*06100954
2008-10-06 00:00:00
China's emerging middle class: a changing social and political order
INT7International/SocietyChina's emerging middle class: a changing social and political orderBy Ren KeBeijing, Oct 6 Xinhua Eric Wang walks into a restaurant near his office in Beijing's central business district. Wearing an immaculately pressed dark blue suit with a gold-coloured tie, he picks up a cup of cappuccino and sips."It's really a sharp contrast between my life and that of my parents," says Wang. A certified public accountant CPA in an international accounting firm, he enjoys a life of great vicissitudes.Born into a rural family in east China's Zhejiang province, Wang every summer visits his village to help his parents who earn a living by farming and fishing in the Taihu Lake.Now 29, he earns more than 200,000 yuan $29,000 a year by working for companies which look to be listed on the stock exchange.In major metropolian cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, among others, Wang and his ilk are making up a group that has emerged in China after the country's economic makeover began three decades ago.Thirty years ago, Wang's parents lived in a people's commune in which everything was collectively owned by the member peasants. Workers in factories enjoyed cradle-to-grave welfare.Another group, the intellectuals, including teachers in colleges and performing artistes, were tied in different organizations.Situations changed as China adopted a policy of opening up to the outside world in 1978, when national leader Deng Xiaoping and his supporters decided to end the class struggle and turn to economic development.Zhang Wanli, deputy researcher with the Sociology Institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences CASS, notes that before 1978 China had three classes - peasants, workers, and intellectuals. Private enterprise was strictly prohibited. A peasant who sold eggs in rural free market would be seen as "the tail of capitalism" that had to be cut off.Restrictions were gradually lifted from 1978. People now could run private enterprises and employ workers.Then, foreign capital came. Thanks to those changes, commercial, financial and services sectors grew rapidly. New jobs, white-collar managers in foreign and domestic enterprises, owners of small and medium enterprises came into existence. So did professionals, like lawyers and accountants.Freed from the restraints of the old system, they gained in mobility that allowed them to acquire economic interests, like entrepreneurship and knowledge, in the budding markets.However, the new class has stirred up controversies. Many people believe "middle class" is a lifestyle. They think a middle class family should own at least one apartment and one car, have a golf club membership, and often travel overseas. In other words, it is a lifestyle of the rich."I have no car, and I live in an apartment built as work unit accommodation from the CASS," says Zhang."But when I was interviewing a millionaire entrepreneur at one time, he said I definitely belong to the middle class." Zhang says social status and profession, rather than income, play more important roles in defining social classes.In 2001, the CASS conducted a nationwide survey, which found the middle class in terms of profession, including people with new jobs and in non-public sectors, and those government officials and intellectuals in the middle levels, accounted for 20 percent of the total population.In that survey, intellectuals, executives, officials of vice-ministerial level and above, billionaire private business owners were defined as the upper class, while industrial workers, business people, and farmers and jobless people were placed in the lower classes.Although the middle class kept increasing in the past seven years, Zhang says its proportion to the total population remains approximately the same as more rural people come to the cities to seek work swelling the number in the lower stratum. Considering that rural population account almost 64 percent, it is really a large number.In 2006, the state-run Outlook Weekly reported the newly emerging strata, including non-public sectors and professional people, accounted for 11.5 percent of the population and contributed almost one third of the total taxes. They also held more than half of the total technical patent rights."If the middle class can be quantified by money, I belong to it," says Eric Wang, "but it makes no sense - I'm only a high-paid worker."China's middle class is trying to find a place in the established political system. The recent years have witnessed its rise as a politically significant section.Zhang points out that more private entrepreneurs and professionals became delegates to the National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2007. Considering the increasing economic and social influence of the new social stratum, the Party has made efforts to include them in the political mechanism.--Xinhuadkg835 Words06100848
2008-10-06 00:00:00
Survey shows contraception myths
Women miss out on the best contraception for them because of false beliefs and fears, a snapshot survey finds. ...
2008-10-05 18:29:04
Warning over free security survey
Elderly residents are warned to be on their guard against firms offering "grossly overpriced" security equipment. ...
2008-10-05 09:26:13
Roadshow: The pros and cons of carpool lanes and metering lights
Roadshow conducts a survey: Where do carpool lanes and metering lights work, and where do they do more harm than good...
2008-10-05 05:03:48
China strives to curb fall-out from tainted milk scandal AFP
AFP - China struggled Sunday to contain the fall-out from the tainted milk scandal, announcing a new survey of dairy products that found no melamine and promising to subsidise farmers hit by the scare...
2008-10-05 04:00:00
China seeks balance between food security, urbanisation
INT5International/EconomyChina seeks balance between food security, urbanisationBeijing, Oct 5 Xinhua Feeding 1.3 billion people remains one of China's top challenges after 30 years of reform and opening up and the government's worries are all the more aggravated by the continuous loss of farmland and labour to rampant urbanisation."We used to store big urns of grain at home every year, but now few families do so and instead we buy grain. The young are working away from the farms," says 57-year Zhou Siyu of Longkou village in Shandong province."The buildings and roads take too much high-yield cropland and shrubs or flowers have been planted in beautification schemes," she rues.The government's concerns reflect the worries of ordinary farmers. In July, the government approved a medium to long-term guideline to ensure food security, setting grain production targets at 500 billion kg by 2010, 540 billion kg by 2020 and 95 percent self-sufficiency by 2020.It also prescribes ways to protect farmland, construct rural infrastructure and raise farmers' incomes.China presently has about 1.827 billion mu 121.8 million hectares, or 1.39 mu 0.09 hectares per capita, about a third of the global average. In 1996, it had 1.951 billion mu 130.07 million hectares, or 1.59 mu 0.11 hectares per person - a loss of 6.4 percent of the arable land in 11 years mainly to urbanisation.China's urban population is also growing fast: from 17.9 percent of the total population in 1978 to 43.9 percent in 2006. The government is aiming for 70 percent by 2050, about average for a "relatively developed country".A survey in 145 cities by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research under the China Academy of Sciences showed 70 percent of new construction in large and medium-sized cities is on arable land. "The figure is 80.9 percent in some western areas," says Chen.China reported 7,438 square km of urban area in 1981 and 32,521 square km in 2005, a 340-percent increase in 25 years.Meanwhile, the ministry of agriculture says the country will need 1.824 billion mu 121.6 million hectares of farmland in 2010 and 1.85 billion mu 123.33 million hectares in 2030 to achieve 95 percent self-sufficiency, meaning the farmland area must increase.However, some believe urbanisation does not necessarily bring about a reduction in farmland or lead to an impending "grain crisis". It could be attributed to "irrational urbanisation," says Chinese Academy of Social Sciences CASS researcher Li Chenggui. "Scientific urban planning could save farmland or use it more efficiently."Minister of Land and Resources Xu Shaoshi says the government must protect farmland, ensuring development takes as little farmland as possible, and use more non-farm land and improve land use efficiency.Experts believe China's two categories of land ownership are at the root of the problem. "The system is why farmland disappears so easily," Li says.Land ownership is divided into state-owned and collective-owned land. Collective-owned land, almost all rural and suburban land, is owned by the rural collective economic organisation. Farmers do not own farmland, although they have the right to use and manage it.Turning rural land into state-owned land, then into construction land, means profits.According to the national Land Administration Law, compensation for farmland appropriation for construction should be, at most, "30 times the average annual output in the previous three years".The high profits may encourage local governments to allow contractors to turn rural land into state-owned construction land, Li says.Some experts argue for only one form of ownership so the government can maintain overall control over planning, says Liu Weixin, deputy director of the Modern Urban and Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.CASS researcher Li says grain output can also be increased through cultivation of as hybrid rice, infrastructure construction to boost output of low and medium-yield land which is about two-thirds of the arable land in China and introduction of modern farm management.This year, China could have a fifth consecutive bumper summer harvest, the longest run of bumper harvest since 1949, according to the ministry of agriculture.The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation defines food security as access for all people, at all times, to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.The peasant woman of Longkou village remembers the extreme famine from 1959 to 1961, when "all the tree bark disappeared. People had to consume the barks to survive"."Our generation have experienced hunger. We feel uneasy when we see high-yield farmland wasted," Zhou says. She keeps tending a small plot of cropland.--Xinhuadkg/jg842 Words05100738
2008-10-05 00:05:07

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BISHKEK/MOSCOW

Gujarat experts to prepare rehabilitation plan for flood-hit Bihar

MOSCOW/BISHKEK

Strong earthquake jolts central Afghanistan

China's emerging middle class: a changing social and political order

Survey shows contraception myths

Warning over free security survey

Roadshow: The pros and cons of carpool lanes and metering lights

China strives to curb fall-out from tainted milk scandal AFP

China seeks balance between food security, urbanisation