ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
January 18, 2016
Beijing says pollution lessened
in 2015 despite smog alerts
By Louise Watt
The Associated Press
EIJING — Environmental
authorities in Beijing say air
quality improved in 2015, a
year in which they issued the city’s
first two red smog alerts and showed
a greater willingness to disrupt
industry and ordinary people in
search of cleaner air.
China has been setting national
and local targets to reduce its
notorious air pollution as citizens
have become increasingly aware of
the health dangers. Beijing’s munici-
pal government has been replacing
coal-fired boilers with natural-gas-
powered facilities, forcing older, more
polluting vehicles off the road, and
closing or moving factories that are
heavy polluters.
The city’s average concentration of
PM2.5 — small, inhalable particles
that can penetrate deep into the
lungs and are considered a reliable
gauge of air quality — was 81 micro-
grams per cubic meter in 2015. That
was a drop of six percent from 2014,
and 10 percent lower than 2013,
when Beijing started publishing data
on PM2.5.
The “number of days of most seri-
ous PM2.5 pollution is falling each
year,” the capital’s municipal envi-
ronmental protection bureau said.
It was, however, still more than
twice China’s own standard of 35
micrograms per cubic meter, and
eight times higher than an annual
mean of 10 that the World Health
Organization gives as its guideline
for safe air.
Other
pollutants
also
fell,
including sulfur dioxide by 38 percent
B
EXPLOSIVE LESSONS. A Filipino boy cries at a hospital after being
treated for an injury from a firecracker explosion while celebrating the
New Year in Manila, the Philippines. Despite the total ban of some fire-
crackers, many Filipinos welcome the New Year with fireworks, allegedly
to bring them good luck and to drive away evil spirits. (AP Photo/Linus
Escandor II)
Firecrackers leave one dead,
380 injured in Philippines
MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — Philippine officials
say firecrackers left at least one man dead, 380 other
revellers injured, and caused a fire that gutted 1,000
shanties, despite rains and a government scare campaign.
Health secretary Janet Garin said a drunken man lit a
dynamite-like firecracker called “Goodbye Philippines”
and embraced it on New Year’s Eve, ripping his jaw and
killing him.
Garin said the number of injured, while still alarming,
was less than half of last year’s number because of late
rains and government warnings that people risked limb
amputations if they were injured by oversized fire-
crackers.
Fire officials also said a rocket lit by revellers set ablaze
an abandoned hut and sparked a fire that razed about
1,000 shanties in Manila.
q
SMOG STATUS. A woman wearing a mask for protection against pollution walks on a pedes-
trian overhead bridge as office buildings in the Central Business District of Beijing are shrouded
with smog. Environmental authorities in Beijing said the Chinese capital’s air quality in 2015 was
better than the year before despite the city’s first two red alerts for pollution late in the year. China
has been setting national and local targets to reduce its notorious air pollution as citizens have be-
come increasingly aware of the health dangers. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
and nitrogen dioxide by 12 percent. alert from a forecast of 72 hours of
The
environmental
protection continuous “severe pollution” — a
bureau attributed the lowering of Chinese air-quality index reading of
sulfur dioxide to the phasing out of more than 300 — to “heavy pollution”
coal-fired heating systems.
or a reading of 200. “The earlier the
Beijing’s air gets especially bad in launch, the greater the emissions
the winter, when the burning of coal reductions,” the city government said
for heat in northern China increases at the time.
and weather patterns add to the
The two red alerts came about
smog. Almost half of the worst air because of the lowered threshold and
days were in the final two months, a greater willingness by authorities
according to the environmental to issue one, said Ma Jun of the
bureau.
non-governmental Institute of Public
Beijing issued its first two red and Environmental Affairs in
alerts in December under a two-year- Beijing.
old system. It meant half the city’s
“I think before there had been some
vehicles were ordered off the roads on reluctance to do it because it’s highly
a given day, factory production was challenging to organize this and it
restricted, and schools were closed.
will have a high social and economic
In March last year, it lowered the cost,” said Ma. “There has been a
threshold required to trigger a red changing mindset on this.”
Giant golden statue of Mao demolished in central China
BEVY OF BRUSHERS. Indian school children brush their teeth
in an attempt to set a new record for a mass toothbrushing activity, in
Bangalore, India. Thousands of students from different schools gathered
at the single venue and brushed their teeth at the same time. (AP Photo/
Aijaz Rahi)
Thousands of Indian kids brush
teeth in unison for record
BANGALORE, India (AP) — Thousands of Indian
children gathered in the southern city of Bangalore to
brush their teeth, altogether, in an effort to raise aware-
ness about good oral hygiene.
Dr. Girish Rao from My Dental Plan, a program that
organized the event, said the 17,505 kids from 20 schools
who participated set a new record for a mass tooth-
brushing activity.
The two-minute effort was witnessed by an
international auditor who is submitting documents to the
Guinness Book of World Records.
Rao said in a statement that “the earlier record was by
13,800 children at El Salvador in South American in
1995.”
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BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese village abruptly
demolished a statue of communist China’s founder, Mao
Zedong, after images of the structure covered in gold paint
and looming 120 feet high over farmland attracted heated
discussion on social media.
Although the official reason for the demolition is
unknown, with even a high-level Communist Party
newspaper struggling to explain the episode, the rise and
fall of the Mao monument in central China’s rural Henan
province highlights the political sensitivities in the
country surrounding a historical figure alternatively
revered and criticized by both the public and the
government.
The project, reportedly financed by entrepreneurs, cost
$460,000 and was near completion when it was nixed by
local officials after images of the statue elicited mixed
reactions on Chinese social media, and the story was
picked up by domestic and international media.
The People’s Daily, the official Communist Party
newspaper, said the statue may have lacked approval
from cultural management authorities, though it also
cited an official as saying that did not appear to be the
reason. Local officials could not be reached for comment,
and some agencies’ publicly listed telephone numbers
appeared to be disconnected.
Since his death in 1976, Mao has been both revered as a
founding father and blamed for political turmoil and
disastrous economic policies that claimed millions of lives.
Successors including Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount
leader during the 1980s, openly rebuked the cult of
personality that had been built around Mao and warned
cadres about the risk of overly concentrated influence.
Even as China’s current president, Xi Jinping,
consolidates power to a degree that has drawn
comparisons to Mao, he warned in a 2013 speech against
“worshipping” revolutionary leaders without pointing out
MOMENTARY MAO. A construction crane rises next to a 120-foot-
tall gold-colored statue of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Tongxu
County in central China’s Henan province, in this January 4, 2016 file
photo. A village in central China demolished the statue of Mao after im-
ages of the structure covered in gold paint and looming high over farm-
land attracted heated discussion on social media. (Chinatopix via AP, File)
their mistakes.
Still, Mao, known as the “Great Helmsman,” has kept a
firm grip on the imagination for a large swath of the
population, particularly the dissatisfied, rural poor,
drawing notice of central authorities.
In December, the Global Times, a Communist Party
tabloid, reported on the latest Mao statue to rise in rural
northwestern China, where villagers sang revolutionary
songs in a quasi-religious ceremony that featured
“ecstatic dance” and a shamanistic figure brandishing a
sword.
“Building Mao temples is not encouraged by the central
government or local authorities,” the article noted.
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