Monday, March 1, 2010

“China boosts international rescue squad to match its growing world role (Guardian Unlimited)” plus 3 more

“China boosts international rescue squad to match its growing world role (Guardian Unlimited)” plus 3 more

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China boosts international rescue squad to match its growing world role (Guardian Unlimited)

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 11:26 AM PST

Link to this video

China is investing almost £10m this year to more than double the size of its international search and rescue squad.

The move follows 2008's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, south-west China, which left an estimated 90,000 dead or missing.

Huang Jianfa, a division director at the Chinese Earthquake Administration, said today: "We will be able to send more teams to operations overseas and that's one of the reasons we are expanding."

While critics say China is not taking on responsibilities to match its greater role in the world, Beijing points to contributions such as its increased commitment to UN peacekeeping forces and its help in international disasters.

The rescue squad, founded in 2001, sent 60 members to Haiti last month.

China will inject 100m yuan (£9.64m) to increase the team's numbers from 220 to 500 by the year's end, Huang said.

Another 5,000 rescue workers belong to purely domestic teams around China but train at the squad's centre north-west of Beijing.

There they conduct exercises in a simulated disaster zone which are an eerie echo of real tragedies: sniffer dogs scrabble over collapsed buildings and rescuers call out to potential survivors. Others descend from tilting apartment blocks, with plastic "children" strapped to their backs.

Liu Xiangyang, who commands the rescue corps, said: "I believe this is good for [how people perceive] China. In the past what we gave was food and materials – now we can save lives, and life is the most precious thing of all."

But he added: "The pressure is bigger on overseas jobs. Most of our team speak English but sometimes the locals do not, so it's very difficult to understand how deeply people are buried or how badly they are injured."

The team also includes 20 paramedics and specialists in building structures.

State media reported that 29 people were injured in a 5.1-magnitude quake in south-western Yunnan province yesterday.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Milan studies Melbourne’s disabled access (Leader Community Newspapers)

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 03:07 PM PST

MELBOURNE has become a beacon for international cities wanting to become more disability friendly, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle says.

A group of young disabled people from Melbourne's Italian sister city of Milan is in town this week to get ideas.

Cr Doyle said Melbourne's success in improving access for people with disabilities was admired throughout the world and a key factor in the city's ranking among the three most liveable cities.

>> How can Melbourne improve access for all abilities? Tell us below.

Among the initiatives capturing foreign attention was the introduction of a mobility centre offering hire equipment to help people get around.

Other contributing factors include Melbourne's provision of a large number of disabled toilets and mobility maps and a recent trial of Braille street signs to help blind people navigate without help.

The city will become even more appealing for people with disabilities following the implementation of a disability action plan including the further roll-out of tactile and audio street signs, stricter building standards and more disabled car parks.

"We are pleased that our sister city Milan has consulted Melbourne for advice on disability access initiatives and will develop a similar model to our Melbourne Mobility Centre," Cr Doyle said.

The visit is part of a cultural exchange and the group will also learn about Australian culture. Future Melbourne Committee chairwoman Jennifer Kanis said the visit would benefit both cities.

"By working closely with on-the-ground disability organisations in both Melbourne and Milan, each city will gain insight into new approaches to help address some of the barriers that people with disabilities face in a busy metropolis like Melbourne or Milan," she said.

>> How can Melbourne improve access for all abilities? Tell us below.

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Metropolitan Learning Center (Journal Inquirer)

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 10:43 PM PST

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BLOOMFIELD — These ninth- through 12th-grade students from area towns were named to the second-quarter honor roll at Metropolitan Learning Center Interdistrict Magnet School for Global and International Studies.

New analysis reasserts video games' link to violence (USA Today)

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 10:03 PM PST

The results hold "regardless of research design, gender, age or culture," says lead researcher Craig Anderson, who directs the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames.

His team did a statistical analysis of studies on more than 130,000 gamers from elementary school age to college in the USA, Europe and Japan. It is published today in Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association.

But Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, says in a critique accompanying the study that the effects found "are generally very low." He adds that the analysis "contains numerous flaws," which he says result in "overestimating the influence" of violent games on aggression.

Ferguson says his own study of 603 predominantly Hispanic young people, published last year in The Journal of Pediatrics, found "delinquent peer influences, antisocial personality traits, depression, and parents/guardians who use psychological abuse" were consistent risk factors for youth violence and aggression. But he also found that neighborhood quality, parents' domestic violence and exposure to violent TV or video games "were not predictive of youth violence and aggression."

Anderson says his team "never said it's a huge effect. But if you look at known risk factors for the development of aggression and violence, some are bigger than media violence and some are smaller.

"If you have a child with no other risk factors for aggression and violence and if you allow them to suddenly start playing video games five hours to 10 hours a week, they're not going to become a school shooter. One risk factor doesn't do it by itself."

But he notes that video game violence is "the only causal risk factor that is relatively easy for parents to do something about."

Both of his college-age kids grew up playing video games, Anderson says, but many games rated "E" (for "everyone") contain violence.

"The rating itself does not tell you whether it is a healthy or unhealthy game," he adds. "Any game that involves killing or harming another character in order to advance is likely to be teaching inappropriate lessons to whoever is playing it."
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