Air pollution reduces visibility in Beijing, Chain

BEIJING  (AFP) – Public anger in China at dangerous levels of air pollution, which blanketed Beijing in acrid smog, spread Monday as state media queried official transparency and the nation’s breakneck development.
The media joined Internet users in calling for a re-evaluation of China’s modernisation process, which has seen rapid urbanisation and dramatic economic development at the expense of the environment.
Dense smog shrouded large swathes of northern China at the weekend, cutting visibility to 100 metres (yards) in some areas and forcing flight cancellations. Reports said dozens of building sites and a car factory in the capital halted work as an anti-pollution measure.
Doctors at two of the city’s major hospitals said the number of patients with respiratory problems had increased sharply in the past few days, state media reported.
“Now it has been dark with pollution for three days, at least people are starting to realise how important the environment is,” said one posting on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo.
At the height of the smog Beijing authorities said readings for PM2.5 — particles small enough deeply to penetrate the lungs — hit 993 micrograms per cubic metre, almost 40 times the World Health Organisation’s safe limit.
Experts quoted by state media blamed low winds, saying fog had mixed with pollutants from vehicles and factories and had been trapped by mountains north and west of Beijing. Coal burning in winter was also a factor, they added.
In an editorial Monday the state-run Global Times called for more transparent figures on pollution and urged the government to change its “previous method of covering up the problems and instead publish the facts”.
Officials in China have a long history of covering up environmental and other problems.
Earlier this month a chemical spill into a river was only publicly disclosed five days after it happened, and authorities were widely criticised for initially denying the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.
“The choice between development and environmental protection should be made by genuinely democratic methods,” the Global Times said. “Environmental problems shouldn’t be mixed together with political problems.”
Official PM2.5 statistics have only been released for China’s biggest conurbations since the beginning of last year, and expanded to cover 74 cities earlier this month.
The paper ran a story on differences between air quality index (AQI) figures given by Chinese authorities and by the US embassy in Beijing — which are correlated with but not directly equivalent to pollutant concentrations.
The tightly-controlled media has previously raised concerns over health problems linked to industrialisation. Observers say the statistics’ increasing availability has forced them to confront the issue more directly.
The Xinhua state news agency criticised the “pollutant belt” that had spread across the country and warned that the authorities’ stated goal of building a “beautiful China” was in jeopardy.
“A country with a brown sky and hazardous air is obviously not beautiful,” it said.
“The environmental situation facing the country will be increasingly challenging,” it said. “There is no reason to be too optimistic.”
Smog levels eased in the capital Monday, with the national monitoring centre putting the PM2.5 AQI figure at 183, or “light pollution”, in the evening — although the US embassy gave it a “hazardous” 335.
Levels remained high in many parts of China, with PM 2.5 AQI standing at 405 in Zhengzhou south of Beijing and 342 in Xian to the southwest.
Share prices of environment-related companies surged, with face mask producer Shanghai Dragon soaring by its 10 percent daily limit.
The smog dominated discussion on Sina Weibo. “This pollution is making me so angry,” said one user, posting a picture of herself wearing a face mask.

Fate Of Pregnant Prisoners

INMATES having babies in prison is a global phenomenon defying solutions.  Authorities of Port Harcourt Prisons are denying warders were responsible for the pregnancies. In the United States, where some prison officials have been convicted for their roles in sexual abuse of prisoners, more than 25 per cent of inmates get pregnant while serving their term.
Arguments of an official of Port Harcourt Prisons, that in all cases the women arrived pregnant, are unattainable.  They are too dumbfounding that they leave no room for important prison reforms. What can be done about pregnant prisoners? How can general prison conditions be improved? Do we ever worry that children born in prison without adequate care could become criminals?
More concern in other places centre on better treatment for children born in prison. There are no easy solutions. Even in USA where six States -  California, Connecticut, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York and Washington – permit “conjugal visits” to aid family bonding, the visits have partly been blamed for the pregnancies, there are no firm plans for the children. Do we punish children too for their mothers’ offences?

File photo: The Kaduna Central Prison.

Current conditions in Nigerian prisons are deplorable. The food is poor; the quantity is not enough for healthy living, worse for pregnant inmates. The hygiene levels are abysmally low. It is almost unthinkable that children are born in these settings. Prisoners, most of them poor, cater for the children until relations take them, or they are put up for adoption. What is their future?
With the generally unacceptable conditions in which Nigerians live, it is easier to ignore prisoners and their plight. They are part of society. If the laws were a little more stringent, more Nigerians, the mighty moreso, could be in jail.
The point is validly made that prisoners – some of who are awaiting trial for years, and who may eventually be released for lack of evidence to prosecute them – have rights. The fact that nobody cares about their rights do not mean they do not exist.
The USA for years lived in denial of the abuses in its prisons. Women were shackled while giving birth, more than 1.5 million children were born in jail over 25 years, sexual abuses were nobody’s concern until some years back when the reforms began. Prison officers are being jailed for abuses; some prisons are building nurseries for the children.
We cannot address abuses in prisons without admitting them. There would be no seriousness without punishing offending officials and setting new standards for conduct. Fears of the truth would delay the reforms that fate of pregnant prisoners deserves.  We have a major prison challenge in our hands, we cannot pretend otherwise

The husband and wife who fine pass?