University to introduce compulsory volunteering, broader degrees (ABC News)

Posted 6 May 2008

The university will soon make it compulsory for science students to do an arts subject and vice-versa

For the people who run Australia's universities, there is a feeling of frustration at the calibre of graduates emerging into the work force, so much so that Macquarie University in Sydney is strongly pushing the virtues of voluntary work in needy communities.

For school leavers, it used to be a choice between getting a job or going to university, but it now seems that some educators are concerned that studying for a degree is too narrow an experience for students. In addition, the university will soon make it compulsory for science students to do an arts subject and vice-versa.

Vice-chancellor professor Steven Schwartz says Macquarie University students will have no choice but to volunteer. "You learn tolerance, you learn team work, you learn communication skills, you learn to see the world through other peoples' eyes," he said. "You learn about other cultures and other places and other languages and sometimes those lessons are just as important as the lessons you learn in a classroom."

He says the volunteering is compulsory in the same way that other parts of the curriculum are compulsory. "We tell students what is in store for them when they come to Macquarie and they choose to come here because this is the kind of education they wish, so I suppose it's compulsory in the sense that we already compel students to do some part of the curriculum," he said. "But we are going to have enough of a variety, I think, of opportunities so that most students will find something that interests them."

Australian Volunteers International are going into partnership with Macquarie University to make the program work. The organisation's chief executive, Dimity Fifer, doesn't want it to be an elective to simply choose on the side. "It's actually a whole part of the philosophy of Macquarie University and I think students get that," she said.

"We have a huge amount of young people in their late teens, their 20s, early 30s, who are actually making a real commitment to say we want to be part of international volunteering. It's not the word per se, they get the spirit. Call it Generation X or Y - young people nowadays really do have an understanding of the sort of competencies and the sort of way you need to live in this new globalised world."

Degree overhaul
It is one of Australia's traditional sandstone universities, but Melbourne has also been at the forefront of radical changes to its degree structure. The Melbourne model is closer to a US-style college education. Undergraduate degrees such as law, medicine and engineering will only be available at graduate level. Students straight out of school are instead being funnelled into broad educational qualifications in arts, commerce, music, science, the environment and biomedicine. And there will be an emphasis on allowing students to dip into other unrelated subject areas.

Pro vice-chancellor of Teaching Learning and Equity at the university, professor Sue Elliot, says students can gain a more in-depth study experience. "Students in their undergraduate degrees undertake depth of study in their discipline, but also breadth of studying by studying outside their core degree," she said. "Students in commerce might take a language for example, students in arts might take a subject on climate change or something that broadens their scientific or mathematical knowledge.

"It's been a very highly successful program and we believe strongly that our graduates need a good awareness of global issues. We've got 60,000 Australians who go overseas each year for work, they need thorough preparation beyond - just that their depth of knowledge and their discipline - they do need this broader study to be prepared for their future careers."

Sharing subjects
At Macquarie University, within two years there will also be further changes to their curriculum. Science students, for example, will need to do some arts subjects, while arts students will gain some science subjects.

"I used to be a dean of medicine and of course where most of our doctors never got an opportunity to take anything other than medical science," Professor Schwartz said. "I'm wondering now, looking back, whether there might actually even be better doctors if they had the opportunity to read a bit of poetry, listen to a bit of music and learn a bit of history, maybe it would make them a better-rounded person."

But is there a danger that this sort of all-round degree might lead to a lack of specialisation? "That is a very good question. One of the things that we used to understand when we were training doctors is that much of what we taught them would be obsolete shortly after they graduated," Professor Schwartz said. "What we really wanted to prepare them for was a lifetime of learning rather than for that very first job after university."

"There is a danger with over-specialised, over-narrow degrees that while you might prepare them for the world as it is today, it's hard to guess what the world will be like in the future. Students who graduated from Macquarie this year won't retire until the year 2050, we don't know what the world's going to be like in 2015, so what we want to do is prepare them for a world of change and for a world in which they will have to keep on learning."

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Seven new energy vehicles set to roll out (China Daily)

By Hao Zhou
Updated: 2008-05-04 17:03

Seven new energy vehicle models are likely headed for mass production in the next one or two months, according to the latest list of auto manufacturers and models approved by the National Development and Reform Commission for production.

The seven models include Shanghai Volkswagen's fuel cell Passat, Shanghai General Motors' SGM7240, FAW's CA7130, and other four hybrid buses produced by Dongfeng Motor Corp, Beiqi Foton Motor, and Changan Auto. The fuel cell Passat is already set to be the official car for the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, and the SGM7240 may be the hybrid Lacrosse. FAW Toyota's Prius and Dongfeng Honda's Civic Hybrid are representatives of the current hybrid car market.

Since the Prius was released in 2005, only 2,400 units have been sold until now, in contrast to FAW Toyota's 280,000 vehicles sold last year alone in China. The same thing happened to the Civic Hybrid as it is rolled to market at the end of last year. Both the Prius and the Civic Hybrid consume only 4.7 liters fuel per hundred kilometers, compared with a conventional 1.8-liter Civic, which consumes at least 5.8 liters fuel per hundred kilometers.

But most customers are held back by high prices. The Prius' standard version is now sold at 259,800 yuan ($37,220) in Guangzhou and the Civic Hybrid is about the same. Nonetheless, as environmental friendly development is high on the country's agenda, more and more new energy vehicles will do more than show off at exhibitions.

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Cancer, stroke top killers for Chinese (China Daily)

2008-04-30

Cancer and stroke are the top two causes of death for Chinese, a Ministry of Health (MOH) study revealed Tuesday. The report of the third national study (2006-08) on causes of death also ranked respiratory diseases third on the list and heart heart diseases fourth.

The study, which is based on two years of research and covers about 210 million residents of 160 cities and counties, also listed injuries and poisoning as the fifth highest cause of deaths in the country. Of the two previous MOH reports, the first was launched in the middle of the 1970s and the second, the early 1990s.

"The number of Chinese who died from the above five reasons account for 85 percent of the total deaths," MOH spokesman Deng Haihua told a press conference in Beijing yesterday.

The death rate of the country's rural and urban residents, particularly of those who died from chronic diseases, was also higher than world average levels. The incidence of stroke in China, for example, was up to five times higher than the record in Europe and the United States, and 3.5 times higher than in Japan. While China's cancer rate was close to that of the US, Britain and France, it was much higher than other Asian countries like Japan, India and Thailand...

...The five top causes of deaths also ranked differently in urban and rural areas. Cancer was the No 1 killer in cities, followed by stroke. In rural areas, stroke cases outnumbered cancer ones, the report showed. Heart diseases were more common than respiratory diseases in urban areas, while the opposite was true for the countryside...

...To promote health awareness, the MOH released a Chinese diet guide in January, which was an update of a decade-old version.Kong Lingzhi, deputy director of the MOH's disease prevention and control bureau, said it was a timely guide to encourage people to eat healthy to prevent against the worrying trend of chronic diseases.

Currently, the death rate from cancer has increased by 83.1 percent over the mid-1970s and by 22.5 percent over the early 1990s, ministry statistics showed.

In urban areas, deaths from lung, intestine, pancreas and breast cancer are higher, while in rural areas, deaths from liver, stomach, gullet and cervical cancer are higher, Kong said. Cancers related to living environment and lifestyles -lung, liver, colorectal, breast and bladder cancer - are also said to be rising. Among these, lung and breast cancer registered the highest increase of 465 percent and 96 percent in the past 30 years, respectively, the MOH report showed. Lung cancer has also replaced liver cancer to become the top killer among malignant tumors in the country, said Qi Xiaoqiu, the director of the disease control bureau under the MOH...

...To reduce the environmental and occupational factors leading to cancers, the authorities would also continue to promote research in the area, Qi said. The ministry will step up efforts to implement the occupation disease prevention law, to help reduce environment- or work-related cancers, he said.

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A dying turtle breed points to a battered China (IHT)

By Jim Yardley
Published: December 5, 2007

CHANGSHA, China: Unnoticed and unappreciated for five decades, a large female turtle with a stained, leathery shell is now a precious commodity in this city's decaying zoo. She is fed a special diet of raw meat. Her small pool has been encased with bulletproof glass. A surveillance camera monitors her movements. A guard is posted at night.

The agenda is simple: The turtle must not die.

Appreciated at last: The last female giant Yangtze soft-shell turtle on the planet. (Du Bin for The New York Times)

Earlier this year, scientists concluded that she is the planet's last known female giant Yangtze soft-shell turtle. She is about 80. As it happens, the planet also has only one undisputed, known male. He lives at a zoo in the city of Suzhou. He is about 100. They are the last hope of saving a species believed to be the largest freshwater turtles in the world...

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Experts say sex abstinence program doesn't work (Reuters)

Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:33pm EDT
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday.

The Bush administration, however, voiced continuing support for such programs during a hearing before a House of Representatives panel even as many Democrats called for cutting off federal money for so-called abstinence-only instruction.

"Vast sums of federal monies continue to be directed toward these programs. And, in fact, there is evidence to suggest that some of these programs are even harmful and have negative consequences by not providing adequate information for those teens who do become sexually active," Dr. Margaret Blythe of the American Academy of Pediatrics told the committee.

These programs, backed by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception methods to teenagers in schools, have received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s. Currently, 17 of the 50 U.S. states refuse to accept federal funds for such programs. Experts from the American Public Health Association and U.S. Institute of Medicine testified that scientific studies have not found that abstinence-only teaching works to cut pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases or the age when sexual activity begins.

The American Psychological Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also issued statements to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform criticizing the abstinence-only programs. Comprehensive sex education programs should emphasize abstinence as the best way for a teenager to avoid pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease (STD), Blythe said. "Those adolescents who choose to abstain from sexual intercourse should obviously be encouraged and supported in their decisions by their families, peers and communities. But abstinence should not be the only strategy that is discussed," Blythe said.

HIGH STD RATES

Lawmakers cited government statistics showing that one in four U.S. teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease and 30 percent of U.S. girls become pregnant before the age of 20.

Republicans said even if some abstinence-only programs do not work, others do, and it would be wrong to end the funding. Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems "rather elitist" that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. "I don't think it's something we should abandon," he said of abstinence-only funding. Charles Keckler of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the Bush administration believes abstinence education programs send the healthiest message.

Stan Weed, director of the Institute for Research and Evaluation, a Utah-based group that researches abstinence programs, disagreed with the other health experts, saying research cast doubt on the effectiveness of broader, comprehensive sex education programs. Panel chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said, "We are showering funds on abstinence-only programs that don't appear to work, while ignoring proven comprehensive sex education programs that can delay sex, protect teens from disease, and result in fewer teen pregnancies. Meanwhile, we have no dedicated source of federal funding specifically for comprehensive classroom sex education," Waxman added.

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Retailers face big fines for violating plastic ban (China Daily)

Updated: 2008-04-10 06:55

Retailers may be fined up to 10,000 yuan ($1,430) for providing free plastic bags to shoppers, the Ministry of Commerce has proposed. The penalty will take effect from June 1, according to a draft regulation published on the ministry's website to solicit public opinion till April 14. The move follows a ban announced in January on the manufacture, sale and use of ultra-thin plastic bags (defined as less than 0.025 mm thick) from June 1 as part of efforts to protect the environment and save energy.

The draft regulation says retailers can set the price for plastic bags, but not below cost. They also have to include the price of the bags on customer receipts, or face fines of up to 5,000 yuan. The regulation does not apply to plastic packaging for frozen or cooked food. Meanwhile, retailers have to allow customers to carry their own bags or baskets; and are encouraged to provide eco-friendly substitutes.

Retailers believe the regulation will help reduce the use of plastic bags. "We have been encouraging customers to bring bags, and we think most of them will choose to do so when we stop providing free bags," said Li Li, head cashier at a Beijing WuMart supermarket.

Most customers interviewed by China Daily at the supermarket welcomed the ban. "I will bring a large fabric bag, and I don't think it will cause any inconvenience. It is a good policy to protect our environment," said a retired worker surnamed Wang.

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China sprays Rudd over Tibet human rights claims (ABC)

By China correspondent Stephen McDonell

Senior Chinese Government officials have publicly attacked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over his comments on Tibet.

In Washington, Mr Rudd said it was clear that human rights abuses were being committed in Tibet, and today he repeated those claims during a speech at a university in Beijing. But Chinese Government officials say his comments are unfounded.

Communist Party Central Committee spokesman Si Ta has criticised Mr Rudd at a Beijing press conference."The reporter mentioned about the certain politician who expressed concern about China's human rights record. This particular politician should join us in condemning the violent crimes in Lhasa - the crimes that have violated human rights," he said. Tibetan Regional Government chairman Xiangba Puncog also disagreed with Mr Rudd's comments and echoed Mr Si's view on human rights. "Australia, or other countries, should have better appreciation and understanding of the fact that people in Tibet are now enjoying democracy and have wonderful human rights protection, and those remarks are totally unfounded," he said.

But Mr Rudd says he will not be backing away from his plan to raise his concerns with the Chinese leadership. "It's important, as I said in my speech earlier today, to have a relationship that is capable of handling a disagreement and putting views in a straight-forward fashion," he said. "That's what I said I'd be doing in my remarks earlier today, and that's what I will be doing. I stand by the comments I made earlier on this matter."

He has also supported Australians' right to turn their back on the Olympic flame. "You know one thing about Australia [is], it's a robust democracy. We live in a free country - people can express their point of view in any manner that they choose," he said.

'A great impact'

In a speech earlier today to Beijing University students, Mr Rudd said he did not support a boycott of the Olympics, but he risked increasing Beijing's ire by talking about other human rights issues and controversies. "There are still many problems in China. Problems of poverty, problems of uneven development, problems of pollution. Problems of broader human rights," he said. "It is important to recognise that China's change is having a great impact, not just on China, but also the world."

Mr Rudd described China's social transformation as "unprecedented in human history", but warned his audience that its rise was causing anxiety overseas. "When people overseas are faced with big changes and uncertainties like these, they get nervous," he said, referring to jobs that have been transferred from other countries to China.

Mr Rudd, who was posted to Beijing previously as a diplomat, is due to meet Premier Wen Jiabao tomorrow and President Hu Jintao at the weekend at an economic forum on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. He has also said he would seek to work more closely with China on fighting climate change.

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China-Australian ties (China Daily)

2008-04-09 07:27

There could be no one more qualified to speak about Australian perspectives on China than the country's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In his first trip to China in the capacity of Australian prime minister, this country, however, is no stranger to him. Rudd served in China as a member of Australia's Foreign Service. He is a scholar of Chinese history. He speaks Chinese fluently. When he became prime minister, Australia had as its head of government a Chinese expert unrivaled in other world capitals.

Though his country historically has had a strong relationship with the United States, Rudd has vowed to seek to rebalance this with a deepening partnership with Asian neighbors including China and India. Australia has now had diplomatic relations with China for 36 years. What began as a narrow relationship, interspersed with the occasional shipment of Australian wheat, has now broadened into an economic relationship, which as of today makes China, Australia's largest trading partner.

The economic potential of the bilateral relations is great. His knowledge of this country has made Rudd a more unbiased and constructive observer: China has achieved great things for its people over the last 30 years, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. The opening of its market, together with China's continued high levels of economic growth, has also helped bring further prosperity to the world. A positive partnership between the two countries that strengthens the international order and that makes these achievements possible would benefit us all.

Rudd has claimed to be an optimist, that together with vision, energy, and commitment, we can truly shape a Pacific Century. Australia has, what Rudd describes, as an engaged, creative, middle power diplomacy. The Asia Pacific Region is the third pillar of Australia's foreign policy, after the US and the United Nations. Australian attitudes toward Asia in general, and China in particular, have dramatically matured in recent years. Awareness is growing of the importance of China in the region and of nurturing a healthy China-Australia dialogue.

The annual strategic dialogue between the two countries, with the first in Canberra in February, should add more important dimensions to the bilateral relations. We hope his excellent command of Chinese will help avoid misunderstandings and misjudgments when the two countries interact.

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