Imports from Burma reached 1 million cubic metres in 2002 and according to the environmental organisation Global Witness
Posted in General on 02. Oct, 2010
Imports from Burma reached 1 million cubic metres in 2002 and, according to the environmental organisation Global Witness, may have reached 1.4 million cubic metres in 2003. As a result, hundreds of square miles of ancient tropical forests in Burma have disappeared.South-east Asia is also reeling under the impact of China’s plans to build dozens of new giant dams across the Mekong, the Salween, the Irrawaddy, and the Brahmaputra. World food prices are bound to rise as a result, causing hardship for the 800 million people around the world who are already short of food.China has so far succeeded only in exporting its environmental problems. When a national logging ban was introduced following disastrous Yangtze floods in 1998, timber imports from Burma, Thailand, Laos and Indonesia shot up.
The North China plain, home to 200 million peasants who used to grow half of China’s wheat, is drying up. The spring dust storms which swirl out of North China and Mongolia are now depositing dust as far away as the US.As the water table falls, large areas of farmland will be taken out of production and China will soon need food imports so large they will dwarf existing world reserves. Wheat production has been falling in China since 2000, and its once massive stockpiles of wheat and corn have disappeared. Indoor pollution from coal burning takes more than 700,000 lives a year.Then there is water. Two thirds of China’s major cities are now seriously short of fresh water, and as many as 700 million people drink water that is contaminated with human and animal waste and that doesn’t come close to meeting government standards (also below world norms).Most lakes and rivers are now heavily polluted; coastal waters are plagued by red tides of algae. Fishing stocks are so exhausted that Beijing has had to impose ever longer fishing moratoriums and to try to cut the size of its fishing fleet.But it isn’t just China that suffers.
They made us lie on the floor and soldiers stood on our heads.”One of the detainees was made to stand inside the oriental toilet at ground level and the flush was repeatedly turned on as a form of humiliation. After the beating, we were hooded and our hands were wired.”The group was taken to Darul Dhyafa, a British interrogation centre in Basra. The building had once been the headquarters for Ali Majid, or Chemical Ali, the man responsible for gassing thousands of Kurds under Saddam Hussein.Soldier C, a reservist attached to the QLR, said he witnessed the repeated beating of four men who were forced to wear sand bags over their heads. The soldier, who has been interviewed by military police, told the Daily Mirror that he saw one unnamed corporal push his fingers into the eyeballs of one hooded prisoner until he screamed with pain.He added: “They’d be on their knees and when they dropped their hands they’d be kicked until they raised them again. The main thing was holding prisoners’ hands up and they’d whack them in the ribs It would happen on every shift Whenever guards changed over, they’d all do the same. So these guys would just get a continual battering.”The account coincides remarkably with that of Mr Taha.
In his witness statement, the Iraqi said: “We were made to stand by a wall and stretch out our arms horizontally. We were warned that if we bent our arms of heads we would be beaten.”As it was impossible to keep our arms straight for more than a few minutes, we were beaten and the beatings covered our neck, chest and genital areas.”A report by a British medical officer who examined Mr Taha when he was admitted to a field hospital late on 16 September said: “It appears he was assaulted approximately 72 hours ago and sustained severe bruising to his upper abdomen, right side of chest, left forearms and left upper inner thigh.”Of the six men who survived their incarceration, two, including Mr Taha, required hospital treatment. Without China, even the mighty US could not run its huge trade and budget deficits. China is the world’s second largest buyer of US government debt, as it recycles a $124bn trade surplus with the United States.