China faces its biggest foe (deadly drought)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LD08Ad02.html


The Chinese leadership, long obsessed with snuffing out social unrest whenever and wherever it occurs, has encountered a foe that cannot be defeated by its four trillion yuan (US$586 billion) economic stimulus package, its Great Firewall of Internet censorship or even brute force: Mother Nature.

As the nation celebrates the miraculous rescue of 115 miners trapped for eight days in one of the country's notoriously dangerous coal mines in northern Shanxi province, the worst drought in a century continues to seize China's southwest. While state-owned China Central Television trumpeted the heroic rescue effort and provided blanket coverage, the head of drought relief in China last week found himself denying media reports of abandoned villages and an exodus of refugees from stricken areas.

"I don't think there are any refugees," said Liu Ning, secretary general of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

But the reports continue, and things could get a lot worse if the hoped-for rainy season does not arrive next month. At least 22 million people and 7.4 million hectares of farmland are affected by the drought in the provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan and in the sprawling municipality of Chongqing. Moreover, Liu, who is also vice minister of water resources, has admitted that three northern provinces - Shanxi, Hebei and Gansu - have also been hit by drought, as has the autonomous region of Ningxia. That means the livelihoods of millions more farmers are at risk, and that drinking water is becoming an increasingly precious commodity.

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Even before the drought, more than half of China's 1.3 billion people did not have access to clean water, causing nearly 200 million unnecessary illnesses annually and 60,000 premature deaths. Although China has 22% of the world's population and only 7% of its fresh water - much of that polluted during the past 30 years of breakneck economic growth - planning for disasters like this was apparently kept on the back burner.
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people are dying

more and more will die as there is less and less

like ours, are such greedy pigs.