Another impending disaster

After the earthquake, China is faced with another danger- swelling lake. The fallen rocks and boulders due to the earthquake has blocked the river flow. Water is accumulating and is in danger of overflowing and breaking the blockage. If this happens, it will mean flooding at the valley where most villagers stay. It will be another tragedy. Study the satellite pictures.

We want to hear from you

Dear CCSS pupils,

Please do me a favour if you see this post. I'm collecting feedback about the CME lessons in class to see how we can improve and make it more interesting. Please go to the school E-learning portal, log in, and go to the survey section and do the one on CME. Your feedback is valuable. Tell us the truth and see what we can do. Thanks!

Simple Living

Nadia Plesner

"My illustration Simple Living is an idea inspired by the media's constant cover of completely meaningless things. My thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designerbags and small ugly dogs apparently is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserve and need attention.

When we're presented with the same images in the media over and over again, we might start to believe that they're important.

As I was reading the book "Not on our watch" by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast this summer, I felt horrified by the fact that even with the genocide and other ongoing atrocities in Darfur, Paris Hilton was the one getting all the attention. Is it possible that show business have outruled common sense?

If you can't beat them, join them. This is why I have chosen to mix the cruel reality with showbiz elements in my drawing."

8,500 killed in 7.8-strong jolt & Schools of death

13 & 14 May, 2008


DEATH'S COLD HAND: A man is overcome by grief yesterday as he grips the lifeless hand of a student near a school that collapsed in Juyuan. About 900 students of Juyuan Secondary School are feared buried under the rubble. -- AP

I believe you've heard or read about another disaster that has hit Asia. A strong earthquake has struck China and created havoc. So many sad stories this month...

Myanmar tightens access to disaster zone

May 14, 2008

Towns and villages are being swamped by huge numbers of cyclone refugees and are unable to cope. -- PHOTO: AP

YANGON - MYANMAR tightened access to the cyclone disaster zone Wednesday, turning back foreigners and ignoring pleas to accept the outside experts who could save countless lives before time runs out.
International aid groups held an urgent meeting in neighbouring Thailand, frustrated by a defiant regime that has held up visas for emergency workers to deliver food, water, medicine and shelter for up to two million people.

They said they were working on unconventional relief plans in the face of the restrictions, as hope faded that the secretive generals who have long distrusted the outside world would make an exception in the face of disaster.

The last time I've already mentioned in my previous blog that Myanmar is one of the poorest country in Asean. One of the main reason is political leadership. Now with the cyclone disaster, the military is making it worse by not allowing experts from international organisations to come into Myanmar to help. The government claimed that international organisations can just give them food and medical supplies and they will handle the rest. Who knows where these supplies will go, for they may never reach the people who need it but rest in some warehouses for the government officials. Good governance is so important to a country development. We must count our blessings. Next week, our Sec 3 pupils are doing newspaper collections and the money collected was meant for our school needy pupils. However, looking at the plight of Myanmar, our school has decided to donate the proceeds to Myanmar to help the poor people. It will be given to Singapore Red Cross Society. Please support our school CIP activity.

Race Against Time in Myanmar

A preview to the mid-year results

I'm going to put the highest and lowest results for each class so that when you receive your results, you know where you stand.

Geo	Highest	Lowest
4N1	37	4.5
4N2	36	0
4N3	31	5.5
4N4	34	1
Geo
3EA	23	9.5
3EB	23	12
SS
3EA	23	10
3EB	21	9

Delta of death

May 7, 2008
Witnesses describe rice fields littered with corpses, while charitable organisations expect death toll to rise as tens of thousands remain missing in wake of Cyclone Nargis
GETTING HELP: Locals helping an injured man on Monday. The area affects by the cyclone is home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people. -- PHOTO: AFP


YANGON - THE area worst affected by the cyclone that struck Myanmar is a vast and populous delta criss-crossed by canals and inlets, factors that made the damage extensive and delivering aid extraordinarily difficult.
Several other reasons have also been cited for the scale of the disaster, including the destruction of mangrove forests that acted as a buffer against the sea, the lack of an early- warning system and a tidal wave that came in the wake of the killer storm.
Based on a satellite map made available by the United Nations, the storm's damage was concentrated over an estimated 30,000-sq-km area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines - less than 5 per cent of the country.
But the affected region is home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57million people.
Aid workers say delivering food, clean water and other supplies to far-flung villages will require an intensive response.
'Our fear is that many in the rural population have been cut off,' said Mr Paul Risley, spokesman in Asia for the World Food Programme, a UN agency. 'In some villages, 90per cent of shelter was destroyed or damaged.'

Remember we learnt about delta formation in the topic 'River'. Deltas are low-lying areas made of acculumated alluvium at the mouth of the river. We know that deltas are precious arable land suitable for growing crops especially wet-rice because of its fertile soil. However, the danger of living on deltas is that the land is prone to hazards such as cyclone and flooding. Myanmar being one of the poorest countries in Asean is again hit by this unfortunate natural hazard. We also learnt that one of the reasons of slow development is because of climate. Countries such as Myanmar will always be slow in their development because natural hazards often destroy infrastructure and lives in the country.
In the article, it also mentions that one of the reasons for the massive destruction is also due to the destruction of mangrove forest. This we learnt in the topic 'natural vegetation', the benefits of natural vegetation such as mangroves. This article links up so many concepts that we learnt in both physical and human Geography. Didn't I tell you that Geography is everywhere every day?

Lights of the World

This is a satellite picture of the world. Question: What does the picture tell you about variations in development in the world? Explain your answer. You can leave your comments in "the comment". 

New child labour scandal rocks China

May 1, 2008More than 1,000 children, aged between 9 and 16 from poor families in Liangshan have been lured to work as cheap labor in factories. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A girl cries as she is rescued from a factory in Dongguan, Guangdong province. -- PHOTO: REUTERS


EXPLOITED: The underage workers, said to earn only 4 yuan an hour, were housed in rented rooms or motels. -- PHOTO: WWW.NDDAILY.COM


BEIJING - A CITY in southern China renowned as a major export hub is at the centre of a child labour scandal after more than 1,000 children were found toiling in its factories, state media reported.

The children, aged between nine and 16, had been sold to the factories in Dongguan city and forced to work long hours for about 4 yuan (80 Singapore cents) an hour, the China Daily said.
Just last year, China was rocked by the exposure of a massive slavery and child labour scandal in which hundreds of farmers, teenagers and children were forced to work in scorching brick kilns, enduring beatings and prison-like confinement.

Similarly, the child labour scandal in Dongguan has triggered outrage across the country and highlighted endemic abuse behind the country's economic boom.
Police have so far rescued 167 children from houses and factories in Dongguan, an industrial city in southern Guangdong province.

Many Hong Kong and Taiwan businesses invest in Dongguan, but in recent years, it has been losing investors to inland provinces, where labour and overhead costs are lower.
The town of Shipai in Dongguan has been identified as a major centre for cheap labour.
From Dongguan, these workers will be sent to factories across the Pearl River Delta region.
The authorities in the city have set up a task force to rescue the children and prosecute those behind the illegal labour ring.

'Our labour enforcement and trade unions will investigate all companies in the town, the labour market and agencies,' Mr Wang Yongquan, a spokesman for Shipai town in Dongguan, was quoted as saying.

Mr He Zhujian, chief of the labour enforcement team in Dongguan, said: 'Most of the employers are medium to small companies. Most small firms are not registered with the labour department and try to cut operational costs.'

The China Daily said several people had been arrested, but did not give details.
The children, all from the ethnic Yi minority, were from poor families in the Liangshan region of the south- western province of Sichuan more than 1,000km away.
An underground organisation had lured the children from Liangshan, where most of the families in the area had more than a child each. China's minority groups are exempted from the official one-child policy.

The middlemen in the child labour ring were reportedly paid 200 to 300 yuan for each child they supplied to the factories.
The ringleaders, according to the China Daily, could earn about 100,000 yuan each within three months.
According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, the underage workers were housed in rented rooms or motels.
A girl whose age was unknown told the Chinese-language newspaper that she had been raped twice.
The China Daily quoted an academic as saying that poverty in Sichuan had forced farmers to send their children off to work.
'In Liangshan, where farming alone cannot support a family...many parents are happy their children are earning several hundred yuan a month,' Professor Hou Yuanguo of the Central University of Nationalities was quoted as saying.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Another sad story about poverty. When the farmers are unable to support their families, they resort to selling their children as child labour to make ends meet. Remember, we learnt one of the strategy to resolve uneven development nationally is population control in China? The one-child policy is not applicable to the minority ethnic groups in China because they are mostly farmers and need children as their source of labour to help. Now this article just proves otherwise. The minority ethnic groups are selling their children to unscrupulous middlemen for that little profit they can get.