by Anne Garrels
December 8, 2009
Transcript
Russia has long grappled with alcoholism among its population. Now, a second plague is afflicting the country: intravenous drug use. Officials say addiction — whether it's drug or alcohol dependency — is threatening the country's future.
Heroin use is a relatively new phenomenon in Russia. It first exploded in the 1990s, when the country was in post-Soviet turmoil and uniquely unprepared to cope with the problem, and it has spread like wildfire. Alcoholism, long Russia's bane, is also rising, especially among young people.
Officials acknowledge the country will have difficulty resolving its demographic crisis if it does not do more to confront these problems. Russia's population has been falling since the mid-1990s, the result of higher death rates and lower birthrates.
The rate of drug-related deaths, at 80 a day, is among the world's highest. Researchers say alcohol is the cause of more than half of all deaths of people ages 15 to 54 — often from accidents, violence or alcohol poisoning.
One group is trying to make a difference at a rehabilitation program in remote western Siberia.
The largely abandoned village of Gerasimovka lies a good hour from Tyumen, the nearest town. It is a risky trip by dirt roads covered with a layer of slick ice.
In a ramshackle house, 30-year-old Natasha Ustiuzhanina sits at the head of the dinner table on a recent evening. The other five people at the meal look to this petite woman for inspiration.
Ustiuzhanina has been through it all. A good student from a prosperous family, she got hooked on heroin. After five years, she finally broke the habit in a 12-step program run by a private agency in Gerasimovka. She now runs it.
Ustiuzhanina is also a leading figure in Russia's association for those living with HIV. Like the majority of intravenous drug users who come to Gerasimovka for help, she is HIV-positive.
This young woman says she is a classic member of what's often called Russia's lost generation
"Nine years ago, heroin became really fashionable. We sat in the best hotels, the best restaurants and sniffed it. We knew nothing about the dangers. Eventually, I started shooting up," she says.
She wants to make sure the next generation is not as ignorant as she was. She also hopes this 12-step program can do what the government has not done: provide effective help for addicts.
Dr. Aleksei Salenko, with the Tyumen government narcotics center, says most addicts who go though government rehab programs suffer a relapse because there is not adequate therapy or post-treatment support.
He says nongovernmental groups like Ustiuzhanina's organization Pokoleniye — which means "generation" — are essential, and he believes there need to be many more of them
At the rehab clinic, the day for recovering addicts begins with a race through the Siberian wind to a pump where they are required to douse themselves with freezing water.
After work, study and therapy sessions, the day ends with an intense sweat in the banya — the traditional Russian steam bath. The staff supervising the four-month program includes former addicts who volunteer their time
Denis Prokin, 32, has been hooked on heroin for 15 years. He finally turned to Pokoleniye after hearing about its success rate. Ustiuzhanina says about 50 percent of addicts treated through her program stay drug free — a high rate compared with most programs worldwide.
"The government programs I went through just isolate you and pump you full of pills. I didn't learn anything about myself. I got out and immediately started shooting up again. I know a lot more now, and when I finish here, I know where to find support groups," Prokin says.
Heroin from nearby Afghanistan has flooded the country, turning Russia into the world's top consumer.
Russia's leading drug enforcement official, Viktor Ivanov, blames the U.S. for this. He says the military is not doing nearly enough in Afghanistan to eradicate poppy production. He says it is notable that while the U.S. funds aerial eradication programs in South America, where drug production is a direct danger to Americans, Washington seems totally indifferent to Afghanistan's threat to Russia.
"Given the damage by Afghan heroin, we have to call it a weapon of mass destruction, selectively attacking the young, the future of our country," Ivanov says.
The Russian government has largely relied on education and healthy living campaigns to fight drug abuse. There is no government money for needle exchange programs to stem the explosion of drug-related HIV. Private agencies rely on foreign funds for this, but after threats of legal action, Ustiuzhanina is afraid to continue Pokoleniye's needle project.
Methadone, widely used in the West to wean people off heroin, is illegal in Russia, and Ustiuzhanina believes the country is currently ill-prepared to handle methadone correctly.
"I know there are successes with it elsewhere, but Russia is so corrupt, supplies would end up on the streets. And it would be misused by incompetent doctors. However I do think the government should encourage discussion about this. Now, there is none," she says.
According to experts in Russia, heroin use may have peaked, though officials say the number of intravenous drug users — an estimated 2.5 million people, or about 2 percent of Russia's population of 142 million — remains a national security threat.
Prokin, the addict seeking treatment at Pokoleniye, believes heroin is losing its appeal as young people see the effects. But he and others say it's being replaced by a wave of new disco drugs, including methamphetamine and ecstasy, and strong narcotics that are distilled from easily obtained over-the-counter, codeine-based medications.
Undermined by a combination of synthetic drugs, 26-year-old Katya Indrulenas has come thousands of miles from Moscow for treatment in Gerasimovka. She says these new drugs are everywhere, along with pressure to try them.
"My friends still don't understand that club drugs are just as addictive and dangerous," Indrulenas says.
Denis Driagin is at the clinic to deal with serious alcoholism. He managed to kick his heroin habit in part because of social pressure. He says he had become a pariah. So instead he turned to beer and vodka because it was socially acceptable.
Salenko, of the Tyumen narcotics center, says rising alcoholism among young people is even more deadly than drugs in the long run. Russians consume roughly 4.75 gallons of pure alcohol a person annually, more than double the level that the World Health Organization considers a health threat and twice the consumption figure for the U.S.
In addition to its anti-drug campaign, the government is launching yet another anti-alcohol campaign. But Salenko isn't optimistic that the modest measures proposed — such as stiffer penalties for the sale of alcohol to minors and a ban on beer sales at kiosks — will have any effect.
He says the government gets too much income from alcohol sales and that entrenched Russian habits and the alcohol lobby are "formidable adversaries."
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
CHINA: American Woman Seeks Justice, Chinese Style
by Anthony Kuhn
December 8, 2009
Despite more than a quarter century of legal reforms and institution building, China still has holdovers from centuries of its own unique legal tradition. One of these is the practice of petitioning higher authorities to overturn local government decisions.
But China's opening to the outside world — and the influx of foreigners that has followed — seem to have produced an odd first: a petitioning foreigner.
Julie Harms is an American woman who lives in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. For the past year, she has gone on a Chinese-style quest for justice on behalf of her Chinese fiance.
Harms, a tall, blond, 30-year-old Texan and Harvard graduate, stands out among the petitioners in line at the Police Ministry complaints office, tucked away in a downtown alleyway in Beijing.
Many fellow petitioners praise her fluent Mandarin. Others seek her help, trying to hand her their sheaves of legal documents, but she insists that she is as helpless as they are.
She is appealing the case of her fiance, who was arrested on charges of trespassing on his neighbor's property and faces three years in jail if convicted.
The institution of petitioning has survived into the present day, almost as feudal — and futile — as before.
In ancient China, a petitioner would bang on a drum to signal that he or she sought an audience with a judge or magistrate to protest some injustice. Unfortunately for the petitioners, the process seldom got the desired results. And the judge could interrogate the petitioner using torture.
Harms is trying to use the modern version of the process.
Harms met her fiance, Liu Shiliang, in eastern Anhui province in 1998 while she was majoring in East Asian studies and international relations at Harvard. In 2007, her fiance got into a fight with a neighbor.
"The neighbor was put in jail for beating up the fiance," explains Liu Jiali, the chief of the fiance's village in Anhui. "But the neighbor demanded that the fiance be arrested. The fiance was the victim in this; why should he have been arrested?"
Harms says there were many flaws in the handling of her fiance's case. One was that local authorities demanded a bribe in a message passed to her fiance's lawyer.
The gist of the message, Harms says, was that if Liu would admit guilt and pay a bribe, the courts would give him a three-month sentence and the case would be concluded.
Harms' fiance and his family refused the demand.
Inside The Legal Labyrinth
On a recent afternoon, Harms stands in line at the Police Ministry complaints office, tucked away in a downtown alleyway in Beijing. A policewoman recognizes Harms from previous visits and brings her to the front of the line, despite Harms' polite refusal to cut in.
Harms has to mentally translate from Chinese into English to describe the action. "A female officer who was just here said that if we don't mind waiting for a little while, that there's a lingdao, a leader inside who will officially hear my case," she explains.
Harms goes past guards and beeping metal detectors and into a starkly lit waiting room, where a paramilitary police officer guards a swinging metal gate, and police officers call out the names of petitioners whose turn it is to speak to police case officers.
After filling out some forms, Harms is called into an inner office, where she speaks with a policewoman familiar with her case. The officer points out that the family of Harms' fiance has a long-running feud with the neighbors in which both sides bear some responsibility.
After about 50 minutes, the policewoman concludes with a standard official line: Please trust China's authorities to handle your case fairly. Harms purses her lips and glances down at her Chinese law books with a quiet look of skepticism.
In ancient China, petitioners would try to get officials' attention by intercepting the sedan chairs in which they were carried. Harms tried to get a letter to President Obama on his visit to China in November. But local police detained her as she waited for the president's motorcade outside the American Embassy in Beijing.
"I simply wrote a short, one-page letter to him," Harms recalls, "expressing my support for his concern about universal rights, and then very simply explaining why this issue was important to me."
The Symbolic Value Of Petitioning
Some legal experts say that the petitioning system is incompatible with the rule of law and should be abolished. Petitioners traditionally do not seek procedural justice or the aid of legal institutions. Instead, they hope for the personal intervention of an honest official — a situation characteristic of the rule of man, not the rule of law.
Beijing University of Technology professor Hu Xingdou says that petitioning resolves very few cases. But it still may have a symbolic use, he says.
"It's to show that there's still some place to which you can appeal an injustice. It gives people a glimmer of hope," Hu says.
Harms' stint as a petitioner seems like the ultimate insider's experience in China, even if she has been spared some of the abuses reported by Chinese petitioners at the hands of authorities. It is hard to imagine other foreigners in China with grievances following her example.
Her petitioning also appears to have given her fiance's case a higher profile. But of course that doesn't mean it will get him justice. The case has attracted the attention of China's police minister. But he merely referred the case back to local officials, whose handling of the case launched Harms onto the long, hard road of petitioning in the first place.
December 8, 2009
Despite more than a quarter century of legal reforms and institution building, China still has holdovers from centuries of its own unique legal tradition. One of these is the practice of petitioning higher authorities to overturn local government decisions.
But China's opening to the outside world — and the influx of foreigners that has followed — seem to have produced an odd first: a petitioning foreigner.
Julie Harms is an American woman who lives in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. For the past year, she has gone on a Chinese-style quest for justice on behalf of her Chinese fiance.
Harms, a tall, blond, 30-year-old Texan and Harvard graduate, stands out among the petitioners in line at the Police Ministry complaints office, tucked away in a downtown alleyway in Beijing.
Many fellow petitioners praise her fluent Mandarin. Others seek her help, trying to hand her their sheaves of legal documents, but she insists that she is as helpless as they are.
She is appealing the case of her fiance, who was arrested on charges of trespassing on his neighbor's property and faces three years in jail if convicted.
The institution of petitioning has survived into the present day, almost as feudal — and futile — as before.
In ancient China, a petitioner would bang on a drum to signal that he or she sought an audience with a judge or magistrate to protest some injustice. Unfortunately for the petitioners, the process seldom got the desired results. And the judge could interrogate the petitioner using torture.
Harms is trying to use the modern version of the process.
Harms met her fiance, Liu Shiliang, in eastern Anhui province in 1998 while she was majoring in East Asian studies and international relations at Harvard. In 2007, her fiance got into a fight with a neighbor.
"The neighbor was put in jail for beating up the fiance," explains Liu Jiali, the chief of the fiance's village in Anhui. "But the neighbor demanded that the fiance be arrested. The fiance was the victim in this; why should he have been arrested?"
Harms says there were many flaws in the handling of her fiance's case. One was that local authorities demanded a bribe in a message passed to her fiance's lawyer.
The gist of the message, Harms says, was that if Liu would admit guilt and pay a bribe, the courts would give him a three-month sentence and the case would be concluded.
Harms' fiance and his family refused the demand.
Inside The Legal Labyrinth
On a recent afternoon, Harms stands in line at the Police Ministry complaints office, tucked away in a downtown alleyway in Beijing. A policewoman recognizes Harms from previous visits and brings her to the front of the line, despite Harms' polite refusal to cut in.
Harms has to mentally translate from Chinese into English to describe the action. "A female officer who was just here said that if we don't mind waiting for a little while, that there's a lingdao, a leader inside who will officially hear my case," she explains.
Harms goes past guards and beeping metal detectors and into a starkly lit waiting room, where a paramilitary police officer guards a swinging metal gate, and police officers call out the names of petitioners whose turn it is to speak to police case officers.
After filling out some forms, Harms is called into an inner office, where she speaks with a policewoman familiar with her case. The officer points out that the family of Harms' fiance has a long-running feud with the neighbors in which both sides bear some responsibility.
After about 50 minutes, the policewoman concludes with a standard official line: Please trust China's authorities to handle your case fairly. Harms purses her lips and glances down at her Chinese law books with a quiet look of skepticism.
In ancient China, petitioners would try to get officials' attention by intercepting the sedan chairs in which they were carried. Harms tried to get a letter to President Obama on his visit to China in November. But local police detained her as she waited for the president's motorcade outside the American Embassy in Beijing.
"I simply wrote a short, one-page letter to him," Harms recalls, "expressing my support for his concern about universal rights, and then very simply explaining why this issue was important to me."
The Symbolic Value Of Petitioning
Some legal experts say that the petitioning system is incompatible with the rule of law and should be abolished. Petitioners traditionally do not seek procedural justice or the aid of legal institutions. Instead, they hope for the personal intervention of an honest official — a situation characteristic of the rule of man, not the rule of law.
Beijing University of Technology professor Hu Xingdou says that petitioning resolves very few cases. But it still may have a symbolic use, he says.
"It's to show that there's still some place to which you can appeal an injustice. It gives people a glimmer of hope," Hu says.
Harms' stint as a petitioner seems like the ultimate insider's experience in China, even if she has been spared some of the abuses reported by Chinese petitioners at the hands of authorities. It is hard to imagine other foreigners in China with grievances following her example.
Her petitioning also appears to have given her fiance's case a higher profile. But of course that doesn't mean it will get him justice. The case has attracted the attention of China's police minister. But he merely referred the case back to local officials, whose handling of the case launched Harms onto the long, hard road of petitioning in the first place.
Future Unclear For 'Megatons To Megawatts' Program
December 5, 2009
Ten percent of the electricity in the United States is generated using fuel made from dismantled Russian nuclear bombs, thanks to a 1993 agreement known as "Megatons to Megawatts." Guy Raz talks to Harvard professor Matthew Bunn about how the program began — and how its future is unclear.
Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®.
GUY RAZ, host:
Did you ever wonder where old decommissioned nuclear weapons go to die? Well, there's a good chance they're powering part of your house. About 10 percent of the electricity in the United States - 10 percent - comes from dismantled Russian nuclear bombs.
Now, what helped make those nukes available was the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. It's a treaty that expired last night.
Matthew Bunn, who teaches at Harvard, is an expert on this nuclear recycling project. It's known as Megatons to Megawatts.
Matthew Bunn, welcome to the show.
Dr. MATTHEW BUNN (Associate Professor, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government): Pleasure to be here.
RAZ: Take us back to the early '90s. How did this idea form to take the uranium from Russian nuclear weapons and convert it into nuclear fuel?
Dr. BUNN: The Soviet Union was falling apart and yet they had this huge amount of nuclear material that was very valuable and that needed to be secured, number one, but also the scientists and the experts working at those huge plants needed to be employed and we needed nuclear fuel for our nuclear power plants.
And so, the fairly simple idea was hatched - let's buy nuclear fuel made from blending down the highly enriched uranium in those Russian nuclear warheads.
RAZ: Now, I understand that half of all nuclear power in this country comes from those decommissioned Russian weapons. Is that true?
Dr. BUNN: That's roughly right. It's a little under half at the moment, but it's in that ballpark.
RAZ: How many bombs have been dismantled this way?
Dr. BUNN: The Russians don't tell us exactly, you know, how many bombs are being disassembled, but the amount of highly enriched uranium that has already been destroyed is enough for over 15,000 nuclear bombs.
RAZ: Fifteen thousand nuclear bombs.
Dr. BUNN: Absolutely, have been permanently destroyed as a result of this deal.
RAZ: Can you take us through the process of how you convert, you know, an ICBM into electricity for my house?
Dr. BUNN: They take the bombs off of the missiles. They disassemble the bombs, which means you take away the outer casing and the explosives from the actual nuclear material. Then you've got a hunk of highly enriched uranium metal, then they chop that up into essentially metal shavings, which they roast in an oven, and then they convert it into a gas form and they put it in a pipe, which then joins with a pipe that has much less enriched uranium and it mixes together and makes uranium with the enrichment that you need for a nuclear power plant, which is much less than the enrichment that you need for a nuclear bomb.
RAZ: Now, what are the economics of the setup? Is it a pretty good deal for the U.S.?
Dr. BUNN: It's been a very good deal for the U.S. And, in fact, ironically, the way the deal has been set up, rather than it being the United States subsidizing Russia, in essence, Russia has been subsidizing inefficient uranium enrichment in the United States.
RAZ: How much do we pay the Russians for this?
Dr. BUNN: So far, the Russians say that they have gotten over eight and a half billion dollars in cash and also nearly $3 billion in natural uranium.
RAZ: So we've paid them, you know, about $11 billion and presumably energy companies in this country have made money off of this?
Dr. BUNN: That's exactly right. So they market it through a U.S. corporation called USEC. It used to be the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, but they're one of those that just changed their name to the acronym officially. And then USEC sells it to U.S. power companies. And USEC has definitely made some good profits from this deal over the course of its lifetime.
RAZ: Now, the Megatons to Megawatts project expires in 2013. Are the Russians interested in extending it?
Dr. BUNN: The Russians are not remotely interested in extending it the way it is. We've managed to set it up in a way that costs them more and profits them less than just making new low-enriched uranium for reactors from scratch. But there are other ways to set it up that would be very profitable for them and would also serve some of their strategic interests in boosting their nuclear exports.
RAZ: What about old American nuclear bombs? Are we using those?
Dr. BUNN: To some degree, not on as large a scale as we're using the Russian nuclear bombs, but there has been many tens of tons of U.S. highly enriched uranium from the military program that has been blended down and used. The Tennessee Valley Authority in particular is using quite a lot of blended down material from the military program and its reactors.
RAZ: Matthew Bunn is an associate professor at Harvard. He joined us from a nonproliferation conference at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Thanks so much.
Dr. BUNN: Thank you.
Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved
Ten percent of the electricity in the United States is generated using fuel made from dismantled Russian nuclear bombs, thanks to a 1993 agreement known as "Megatons to Megawatts." Guy Raz talks to Harvard professor Matthew Bunn about how the program began — and how its future is unclear.
Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®.
GUY RAZ, host:
Did you ever wonder where old decommissioned nuclear weapons go to die? Well, there's a good chance they're powering part of your house. About 10 percent of the electricity in the United States - 10 percent - comes from dismantled Russian nuclear bombs.
Now, what helped make those nukes available was the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. It's a treaty that expired last night.
Matthew Bunn, who teaches at Harvard, is an expert on this nuclear recycling project. It's known as Megatons to Megawatts.
Matthew Bunn, welcome to the show.
Dr. MATTHEW BUNN (Associate Professor, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government): Pleasure to be here.
RAZ: Take us back to the early '90s. How did this idea form to take the uranium from Russian nuclear weapons and convert it into nuclear fuel?
Dr. BUNN: The Soviet Union was falling apart and yet they had this huge amount of nuclear material that was very valuable and that needed to be secured, number one, but also the scientists and the experts working at those huge plants needed to be employed and we needed nuclear fuel for our nuclear power plants.
And so, the fairly simple idea was hatched - let's buy nuclear fuel made from blending down the highly enriched uranium in those Russian nuclear warheads.
RAZ: Now, I understand that half of all nuclear power in this country comes from those decommissioned Russian weapons. Is that true?
Dr. BUNN: That's roughly right. It's a little under half at the moment, but it's in that ballpark.
RAZ: How many bombs have been dismantled this way?
Dr. BUNN: The Russians don't tell us exactly, you know, how many bombs are being disassembled, but the amount of highly enriched uranium that has already been destroyed is enough for over 15,000 nuclear bombs.
RAZ: Fifteen thousand nuclear bombs.
Dr. BUNN: Absolutely, have been permanently destroyed as a result of this deal.
RAZ: Can you take us through the process of how you convert, you know, an ICBM into electricity for my house?
Dr. BUNN: They take the bombs off of the missiles. They disassemble the bombs, which means you take away the outer casing and the explosives from the actual nuclear material. Then you've got a hunk of highly enriched uranium metal, then they chop that up into essentially metal shavings, which they roast in an oven, and then they convert it into a gas form and they put it in a pipe, which then joins with a pipe that has much less enriched uranium and it mixes together and makes uranium with the enrichment that you need for a nuclear power plant, which is much less than the enrichment that you need for a nuclear bomb.
RAZ: Now, what are the economics of the setup? Is it a pretty good deal for the U.S.?
Dr. BUNN: It's been a very good deal for the U.S. And, in fact, ironically, the way the deal has been set up, rather than it being the United States subsidizing Russia, in essence, Russia has been subsidizing inefficient uranium enrichment in the United States.
RAZ: How much do we pay the Russians for this?
Dr. BUNN: So far, the Russians say that they have gotten over eight and a half billion dollars in cash and also nearly $3 billion in natural uranium.
RAZ: So we've paid them, you know, about $11 billion and presumably energy companies in this country have made money off of this?
Dr. BUNN: That's exactly right. So they market it through a U.S. corporation called USEC. It used to be the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, but they're one of those that just changed their name to the acronym officially. And then USEC sells it to U.S. power companies. And USEC has definitely made some good profits from this deal over the course of its lifetime.
RAZ: Now, the Megatons to Megawatts project expires in 2013. Are the Russians interested in extending it?
Dr. BUNN: The Russians are not remotely interested in extending it the way it is. We've managed to set it up in a way that costs them more and profits them less than just making new low-enriched uranium for reactors from scratch. But there are other ways to set it up that would be very profitable for them and would also serve some of their strategic interests in boosting their nuclear exports.
RAZ: What about old American nuclear bombs? Are we using those?
Dr. BUNN: To some degree, not on as large a scale as we're using the Russian nuclear bombs, but there has been many tens of tons of U.S. highly enriched uranium from the military program that has been blended down and used. The Tennessee Valley Authority in particular is using quite a lot of blended down material from the military program and its reactors.
RAZ: Matthew Bunn is an associate professor at Harvard. He joined us from a nonproliferation conference at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Thanks so much.
Dr. BUNN: Thank you.
Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved
CHINA: What The 'Garlic Bubble' Means For China's Economy
December 5, 2009
Never thought a centuries-old root could finance your new car? Think again. These days, garlic is a better investment than gold in China. One of our producers, Zoe Chace, fills in Guy Raz on what the garlic bubble means for the Chinese economy.
Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®.
TRANSCRIPT
GUY RAZ, host:
But what does that have to do with the price of garlic in China? Well, it turns out over the past few months, garlic prices in one Chinese province have shot up as much as 40 times the going rate.
Mr. THOMAS EASTON (Asia Business Editor, The Economist): Something really odd is going on. You know, price increases like that in a product that really has a history going back, what, 5,000, 10,000 years.
RAZ: That's Thomas Easton. He's the Asia business editor for The Economist magazine. And one of our producers, Zoe Chace, has been looking into this garlic mystery. And Zoe's in the studio here with me.
Hi, Zoe.
ZOE CHACE: Hi.
RAZ: So, what's the story? It sounds like a garlic bubble to me.
CHACE: It is. It actually is. Here's the first thing you need to know about China and garlic: China produces more garlic than any country in the world. It's the biggest producer of garlic.
Last year, when the global economy collapsed, the garlic market collapsed. Nobody's buying. So this year, garlic farmers in China planted about 50 percent less garlic. And think about that in terms of China, that's a lot less garlic.
RAZ: Okay. But I mean, that makes sense. If you're a farmer and the markets down, you're gonna hedge your bets and plant less garlic.
CHACE: Yes. It should balance out.
RAZ: Right.
CHACE: But in 2009, two unexpected things happened. The first is swine flu, which we like to blame for everything.
RAZ: I thought that was El Ni�o.
CHACE: No, it's swine flu. People in China are very, very worried about swine flu. It's a big deal. You know how some people think that garlic can keep you from getting sick?
RAZ: Yeah.
CHACE: Okay. In China, some schools have started ordering garlic by the truckload.
RAZ: Okay, but that still doesn't account for a price increase of 40 times for garlic.
CHACE: True. But remember, a second thing happened.
RAZ: Right.
CHACE: The global economy crashed and the Chinese government pumped its banks full of money, and they wanted to make sure that lending would still be going on and people could still borrow.
RAZ: Uh-huh.
CHACE: But that sort of thing started to go wrong.
Here's Thomas Easton from The Economist again.
Mr. EASTON: The government would like it to go into infrastructure projects and a productive economy. But the problem with money is you're never quite sure where it ends up once you put them into the system.
RAZ: I'm sorry. He's saying the extra money that the Chinese government put into the banks went into garlic?
CHACE: Exactly. And to be fair, it went into other things. I mean, the price of rice is shooting up and real estate is going up in some places. But there's nothing like the garlic bubble. It's basically out of sight.
RAZ: So, how'd it happen?
CHACE: So some smart people saw where this garlic thing was headed. Remember the banks are flush with cash. People go and they get a loan and they buy up as much garlic as they possibly can. Then they rent these warehouses and just stash garlic in it, and then they sit on it. They just sit and they wait for the price to rise, and garlic, you know, keeps basically.
RAZ: It doesn't spoil easily.
CHACE: Right. And then they flip it. Price rises, they sell high. These aren't just buttoned up investors or something. I actually talked to this one reporter from the China Daily. And she told me about this kid. He's in his early 20s. He has a middle school education. He has no job. He flipped his stash of garlic and bought a Toyota.
RAZ: He made a killing.
CHACE: Yeah. He's in the main area of garlic production in China, which is Jinxiang, and that's where the garlic frenzy is turning into some kind of gold rush.
RAZ: A garlic rush.
CHACE: Yeah. People are trying to jump on this train before it leaves the station. And some banks in Jinxiang are actually running out of money. They can't keep up.
RAZ: So people better move on this, right, because bubbles obviously burst.
CHACE: That's right, and you don't want to be the one holding the bag or a garage full of garlic. And even when this bubble pops, because it will, you know, there's going to be other bubbles just like this in China for a while.
Here's Thomas Easton from The Economist again.
Mr. EASTON: I think the government is really at a quandary because I think it's worried that if it actually clamps down, the economy will sputter. After all, there isn't a lot of economic demand for exports from places like the United States and Western Europe. So they need to stimulate their own economy. But on the other hand, if they keep stimulating, a lot of money is going to go into these kinds of silly things and a lot of damage is going to be done.
(Soundbite of bread crunching)
RAZ: Well, Zoe, thanks for bringing this $40 garlic bread for me.
CHACE: It's like a giant edible gold brick from here on out.
RAZ: That's our producer Zoe Chace.
Zoe, thanks so much.
CHACE: Thank you.
(Soundbite of bread crunching)
(Soundbite of music)
Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved.
Never thought a centuries-old root could finance your new car? Think again. These days, garlic is a better investment than gold in China. One of our producers, Zoe Chace, fills in Guy Raz on what the garlic bubble means for the Chinese economy.
Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®.
TRANSCRIPT
GUY RAZ, host:
But what does that have to do with the price of garlic in China? Well, it turns out over the past few months, garlic prices in one Chinese province have shot up as much as 40 times the going rate.
Mr. THOMAS EASTON (Asia Business Editor, The Economist): Something really odd is going on. You know, price increases like that in a product that really has a history going back, what, 5,000, 10,000 years.
RAZ: That's Thomas Easton. He's the Asia business editor for The Economist magazine. And one of our producers, Zoe Chace, has been looking into this garlic mystery. And Zoe's in the studio here with me.
Hi, Zoe.
ZOE CHACE: Hi.
RAZ: So, what's the story? It sounds like a garlic bubble to me.
CHACE: It is. It actually is. Here's the first thing you need to know about China and garlic: China produces more garlic than any country in the world. It's the biggest producer of garlic.
Last year, when the global economy collapsed, the garlic market collapsed. Nobody's buying. So this year, garlic farmers in China planted about 50 percent less garlic. And think about that in terms of China, that's a lot less garlic.
RAZ: Okay. But I mean, that makes sense. If you're a farmer and the markets down, you're gonna hedge your bets and plant less garlic.
CHACE: Yes. It should balance out.
RAZ: Right.
CHACE: But in 2009, two unexpected things happened. The first is swine flu, which we like to blame for everything.
RAZ: I thought that was El Ni�o.
CHACE: No, it's swine flu. People in China are very, very worried about swine flu. It's a big deal. You know how some people think that garlic can keep you from getting sick?
RAZ: Yeah.
CHACE: Okay. In China, some schools have started ordering garlic by the truckload.
RAZ: Okay, but that still doesn't account for a price increase of 40 times for garlic.
CHACE: True. But remember, a second thing happened.
RAZ: Right.
CHACE: The global economy crashed and the Chinese government pumped its banks full of money, and they wanted to make sure that lending would still be going on and people could still borrow.
RAZ: Uh-huh.
CHACE: But that sort of thing started to go wrong.
Here's Thomas Easton from The Economist again.
Mr. EASTON: The government would like it to go into infrastructure projects and a productive economy. But the problem with money is you're never quite sure where it ends up once you put them into the system.
RAZ: I'm sorry. He's saying the extra money that the Chinese government put into the banks went into garlic?
CHACE: Exactly. And to be fair, it went into other things. I mean, the price of rice is shooting up and real estate is going up in some places. But there's nothing like the garlic bubble. It's basically out of sight.
RAZ: So, how'd it happen?
CHACE: So some smart people saw where this garlic thing was headed. Remember the banks are flush with cash. People go and they get a loan and they buy up as much garlic as they possibly can. Then they rent these warehouses and just stash garlic in it, and then they sit on it. They just sit and they wait for the price to rise, and garlic, you know, keeps basically.
RAZ: It doesn't spoil easily.
CHACE: Right. And then they flip it. Price rises, they sell high. These aren't just buttoned up investors or something. I actually talked to this one reporter from the China Daily. And she told me about this kid. He's in his early 20s. He has a middle school education. He has no job. He flipped his stash of garlic and bought a Toyota.
RAZ: He made a killing.
CHACE: Yeah. He's in the main area of garlic production in China, which is Jinxiang, and that's where the garlic frenzy is turning into some kind of gold rush.
RAZ: A garlic rush.
CHACE: Yeah. People are trying to jump on this train before it leaves the station. And some banks in Jinxiang are actually running out of money. They can't keep up.
RAZ: So people better move on this, right, because bubbles obviously burst.
CHACE: That's right, and you don't want to be the one holding the bag or a garage full of garlic. And even when this bubble pops, because it will, you know, there's going to be other bubbles just like this in China for a while.
Here's Thomas Easton from The Economist again.
Mr. EASTON: I think the government is really at a quandary because I think it's worried that if it actually clamps down, the economy will sputter. After all, there isn't a lot of economic demand for exports from places like the United States and Western Europe. So they need to stimulate their own economy. But on the other hand, if they keep stimulating, a lot of money is going to go into these kinds of silly things and a lot of damage is going to be done.
(Soundbite of bread crunching)
RAZ: Well, Zoe, thanks for bringing this $40 garlic bread for me.
CHACE: It's like a giant edible gold brick from here on out.
RAZ: That's our producer Zoe Chace.
Zoe, thanks so much.
CHACE: Thank you.
(Soundbite of bread crunching)
(Soundbite of music)
Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved.
CHINA: China economic triumph story of decade
Created: 2009-12-9 1:09:38
Author:Belinda Goldsmith
THE rise of China as an economic superpower was the most read news story of the past decade, surpassing the Iraq War and the attacks of September 11, according to an analysis by a United States-based media tracking group.
The Global Language Monitor, which uses an algorithm to search printed and electronic media and the Internet for trends in word usage, said there was strong interest in the Asian powerhouse, the world's third-biggest economy.
"The rise of China to new economic heights has changed - and continues to challenge - the current international order," said Paul J. J. Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor.
"It is with little surprise that its ongoing transformation has topped all other news stories in a decade bespotted by war, economic catastrophe, and natural disasters."
He said the list was compiled based on the number of citations over the course of the decade on the Internet, the blogosphere, including social media, as well as the top 50,000 print and electronic media sites.
The China story topped news about the 2003 Iraq War, the September 11, 2001 attacks, the ensuing war on terror, and the sudden death this year of Michael Jackson at the age of 50.
Also highly rated were the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency last year, the global recession of 2008-9, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and the war in Afghanistan.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Author:Belinda Goldsmith
THE rise of China as an economic superpower was the most read news story of the past decade, surpassing the Iraq War and the attacks of September 11, according to an analysis by a United States-based media tracking group.
The Global Language Monitor, which uses an algorithm to search printed and electronic media and the Internet for trends in word usage, said there was strong interest in the Asian powerhouse, the world's third-biggest economy.
"The rise of China to new economic heights has changed - and continues to challenge - the current international order," said Paul J. J. Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor.
"It is with little surprise that its ongoing transformation has topped all other news stories in a decade bespotted by war, economic catastrophe, and natural disasters."
He said the list was compiled based on the number of citations over the course of the decade on the Internet, the blogosphere, including social media, as well as the top 50,000 print and electronic media sites.
The China story topped news about the 2003 Iraq War, the September 11, 2001 attacks, the ensuing war on terror, and the sudden death this year of Michael Jackson at the age of 50.
Also highly rated were the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency last year, the global recession of 2008-9, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and the war in Afghanistan.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
CHINA: Population officials head off boy ploy
Created: 2009-12-9 1:09:12
Author:Cai Wenjun
SHANGHAI population officials are optimistic about controlling the boy-heavy imbalance among newborns of migrant people and are already seeing an improvement.
To keep the gender ratio random, the city government has a ban on checkups on fetus sex and abortions for women pregnant for 27 weeks or more for non-medical reasons.
Policies like enhanced education, subsidies and more training opportunities for girls have been introduced to encourage migrants from rural areas to have daughters.
Officials said they had noticed more migrants starting to give up the traditional boy mentality for two reasons - increased education and the fact they are mirroring the behavior of Shanghainese.
The gender ratio between newborn boys and girls among the registered population in Shanghai is balanced, while the ratio for migrant newborns is 120 to 124 boys against 100 girls.
The natural range is 103 to 107 boys against 100 girls, Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission officials told city-based consuls at its annual demographic briefing yesterday.
According to the commission, the city's population is continuing its upward trend.
Shanghai had 6.42 million migrant people last year, with 5.17 million of them staying for six months or more.
The city's overall population in 2008 was 18.88 million, including the registered population and those staying for six months or more.
The growth rate last year was 1.64 percent, higher than the nation's 0.53 percent.
About 152,100 foreigners stayed in the city for more than six months last year, 18,800 more than 2007, commission officials said.
About 165,000 babies are expected this year, similar with last year's 166,600.
"The focus has shifted from just birth control to an integrated solution to population issues like how to improve population quality, enhance guidance on early education to children below three and better reproductive services to migrant people," said Xie Lingli, commission director.
She said Shanghai faced many challenges on population management, including the newborn gender ratio, a growing gray-hair population and rising migrants.
The government invested 490 million yuan (US$71.76 million) in reproductive services last year, a 32 percent increase from 2001.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Author:Cai Wenjun
SHANGHAI population officials are optimistic about controlling the boy-heavy imbalance among newborns of migrant people and are already seeing an improvement.
To keep the gender ratio random, the city government has a ban on checkups on fetus sex and abortions for women pregnant for 27 weeks or more for non-medical reasons.
Policies like enhanced education, subsidies and more training opportunities for girls have been introduced to encourage migrants from rural areas to have daughters.
Officials said they had noticed more migrants starting to give up the traditional boy mentality for two reasons - increased education and the fact they are mirroring the behavior of Shanghainese.
The gender ratio between newborn boys and girls among the registered population in Shanghai is balanced, while the ratio for migrant newborns is 120 to 124 boys against 100 girls.
The natural range is 103 to 107 boys against 100 girls, Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission officials told city-based consuls at its annual demographic briefing yesterday.
According to the commission, the city's population is continuing its upward trend.
Shanghai had 6.42 million migrant people last year, with 5.17 million of them staying for six months or more.
The city's overall population in 2008 was 18.88 million, including the registered population and those staying for six months or more.
The growth rate last year was 1.64 percent, higher than the nation's 0.53 percent.
About 152,100 foreigners stayed in the city for more than six months last year, 18,800 more than 2007, commission officials said.
About 165,000 babies are expected this year, similar with last year's 166,600.
"The focus has shifted from just birth control to an integrated solution to population issues like how to improve population quality, enhance guidance on early education to children below three and better reproductive services to migrant people," said Xie Lingli, commission director.
She said Shanghai faced many challenges on population management, including the newborn gender ratio, a growing gray-hair population and rising migrants.
The government invested 490 million yuan (US$71.76 million) in reproductive services last year, a 32 percent increase from 2001.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
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