Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Energy News .




TRADE WARS
Sick workers pay price for Chinese growth
by Staff Writers
Shuangxi, China (AFP) May 28, 2013


China province to abolish teacher HIV tests: report
Beijing (AFP) May 28, 2013 - A Chinese province is likely to abolish mandatory HIV tests for teachers, the first region on the mainland to do so, state media said Tuesday.

HIV carriers are excluded from civil service jobs including teaching and policing in many provinces across China, leading to accusations of discrimination from rights groups.

But the state-run China Daily said that HIV tests had been removed from a draft list of health standards for teaching candidates in Guangdong, in the south of the country.

It quoted a lawyer as saying that people with HIV have filed an increased number of anti-discrimination lawsuits which have raised awareness of the issue, though most have been unsuccessful.

As of the end of 2011 there were an estimated 780,000 people with HIV/AIDS in China, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, out of the country's total population of about 1.35 billion.

The first 10 months of 2012 saw more than 34,000 new cases of AIDS reported in China, up 12.7 percent over the same period last year, the state-run Global Times reported, citing a health ministry report.

As China boomed around 200 men set out from Shuangxi's rural idyll to build its infrastructure and skyscrapers. Now lung disease from dust has killed a quarter of them and 100 more are waiting to die.

Back home amid rice paddies and forested hills, Xu Zuoqing walks outside and his face contorts in pain from the effort. As he struggles to breathe, his wife rushes over a stool so he can recuperate.

"It's like my lungs are being choked. My chest feels so tight," says the 44-year-old who worked on construction sites for about 15 years, his voice strained at times.

"I just wish I could die comfortably... Well, I wish I didn't have to die."

China's more than three decades of roaring growth, which propelled it to become the world's second-largest economy, have been built on a huge supply of cheap migrant labour from the countryside -- currently 230 million of them.

But safety standards are poorly enforced and according to experts, millions of those workers are now ill with pneumoconiosis, the incurable lung disease that has crippled Xu.

It comes in various forms, from the asbestosis suffered by builders to black lung disease, which affects miners.

Official statistics say China has had 676,541 cases of pneumoconiosis, or 90 percent of all work-related illnesses, but campaigners say the actual total could be as high as six million. A fifth of the recorded victims have already died.

Pneumoconiosis often lies undetected for years, so that workers at mines, quarries, factories and construction sites prolong their exposure to dust building up in their lungs, until they find it agonising to work, walk or even breathe.

Poor rural families lose their breadwinner and are left instead with hefty bills for medical care that can only dull the pain at best -- the government only covers basic healthcare and companies rarely pay compensation.

"You can delay the progress of the disease through certain drugs and treatments, but... it is basically a death sentence," said Geoff Crothall, spokesman for the Hong Kong-based advocacy group China Labour Bulletin.

"You're talking about three to four generations affected by the loss of the major breadwinner of the family. And often it's not just one member of a family. We have many cases of fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins all being affected."

In Shuangxi, a village of several hundred people in the central province of Hunan, cases of illness are steadily becoming fatalities.

There is the mother who lost four of her five sons. The two brothers who died. The one so wracked by pain that he killed himself with an overdose of medicine last month.

Xu's brother passed away in February, leaving his five- and 12-year-old children to be raised by their grandmother.

Xu worries about his own little ones, currently 10 and 12. "I hope they finish school," he says. "I hope they grow up fast."

The preferred destination for the men of Shuangxi was the boom town of Shenzhen bordering Hong Kong, where they found work drilling and blasting holes on construction sites, enveloping themselves in swirls of dust with only flimsy face masks for protection.

It was not until the late 2000s that the hazards began to emerge -- as one by one they grew too weak to work, and the first of the sick died.

But they are among the better-off victims.

In 2009 they took the bold step of returning to Shenzhen to demand compensation, holding sit-ins that gained public sympathy.

After months of bargaining, many received 70,000 to 130,000 yuan ($11,000 to $21,000) from the government while a handful with proper records got up to 290,000 yuan from a workers' insurance scheme.

Nationwide, only an estimated 10 to 20 percent of pneumoconiosis victims can secure payouts.

For most, by the time their illness becomes apparent they have lost any paperwork proving their employment, or the companies have closed, or changed hands, or simply deny liability.

Even for those who succeed, compensation quickly dwindles with daily cocktails of medicines, oxygen machines, injections and emergency hospital stays several times a year all to pay for.

Cao Jieshi has borrowed 40,000 yuan from family and friends to pay his bills.

A reed-thin 46-year-old, he tilts his face skyward as if desperate to swallow air, one of many basic tasks that have become unbearable.

"Even just bathing, (my wife) has to do it for me," he says. "I won't last more than three or four more years."

Xu Zhihui, 53, is also in the final stages of the disease, and cannot help thinking about the life that might have been.

He has lost 15 kilograms (33 pounds) since his working days, and is wracked by a hacking cough, a oversized jacket cloaking his skeletal frame.

"Before, making 20,000 to 30,000 a year was easy. Now we spend 20,000 to 30,000 a year at least," he says hoarsely.

"My wife says to me: 'Such a good-looking guy. Look at what's become of you'."

.


Related Links
Global Trade News






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








TRADE WARS
Commodity markets spooked by Bernanke, China data
London (AFP) May 24, 2013
Commodity prices mostly fell this week as traders balanced weak Chinese data against signs that the US Federal Reserve could curtail its quantitative easing stimulus policy sooner rather than later. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress on Wednesday that the US central bank could scale back stimulus measures soon if economic conditions improved. But he said any tapering off could only ... read more


TRADE WARS
Energy - Balancing the Bonanza: Interview with Mark Thoma

Most Energy Execs Indicate Potential For US Energy Independence By 2030

Renewables the light at the end of the power price tunnel

New report identifies strategies to achieve net-zero energy homes

TRADE WARS
The World's First Full Color 3D Desktop Printer

Oil down in Asia on weak Chinese data

New filtration material could make petroleum refining cheaper, more efficient

Tests lead to doubling of fuel cell life

TRADE WARS
SC Electric Awarded to Upgrade 585 MW Wind Farm in Texas

Solar Wind Energy Tower Receives Patent For Atmospheric Energy Extraction Device

Raytheon using Wind Farm Mitigation kits across Dutch air bases

Wind power blows into Africa

TRADE WARS
Merkel, Li urge dialogue to defuse EU-China trade spats

EU warns on China influence, offers opening on solar dispute

ConEdison Solutions delivers 3,900-panel solar rooftop for Boston Scientific

Trina Solar Modules Provide Solar Energy for the Bavarian State Chancellery

TRADE WARS
S. Korea halts two more reactors over faulty parts

Hundreds rally against Taiwan nuclear referendum

Czech minister baulks at cost of nuclear plant bids

India PM calls for nuclear deal, more Japan investment

TRADE WARS
European and US Cellulase Patents granted to Direvo Industrial Biotechnology

Shanghai sees biofuel gold in recycled cooking oil

Georgia Power adds biomass capacity

Scientists offer first definitive proof of bacteria-feeding behavior in green algae

TRADE WARS
Waiting for Shenzhou 10

China launches communications satellite

On Course for Shenzhou 10

Yuanwang III, VI depart for space-tracking missions

TRADE WARS
Century-Old Science Helps Confirm Global Warming

Understanding the past and predicting the future by looking across space and time

A Local Footprint's Global Footprint

New EU climate policy unlikely before 2015: Poland




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement