Global briefs

BRITAIN: British hospitals are alarmingly dangerous for 
patients. Deaths from hospital infections are at 5000 a year. 
Hospitals have cut back on cleaning and medical staff no longer 
always wash hands as they move from patient to patient. The 
Health Secretary has ordered action to improve hygiene, while 
cost-cutting continues regardless. In the latest scheme being 
considered by ministers, patient's blood and urine samples are to 
be shipped to India for clinical testing -- at a fraction of the 
price such testing costs in Britain. How it will fix the health 
crisis in Britain and help patients is not clear.

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ISRAEL: A protest song topped the Israeli charts recently. 
A cover version of an army number from the 1970s, "Flowers in the 
Barrel", it calls for Israel's troops to hang up their guns. It 
was recorded by Israel's first super-star rapper, Subliminal.

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THE PHILIPPINES: Global warming has cut rice harvests by 
at least 10 per cent, according to scientists in the Philippines. 
After studying 12 years of rising temperatures and falling 
yields, they calculated that rice yields fall by 10 per cent for 
every 1 degree C rise in night-time temperature. If they are 
correct in their calculations, the predicted rise in temperature 
of 3.5 degrees C this century could diminish rice yields by a 
further 30 per cent. This would threaten the world's poor, as 
rice production must rise by one per cent per year to meet world 
demand.

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JAPAN: Nine Japanese writers, scholars and critics have 
formed the "Article 9 Committee" to help increase popular 
pressure to uphold the article in the Japanese Constitution which 
renounces war.

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NORWAY: Peace activists from Sweden, Germany and Britain 
carried out a "citizens' weapons inspection" of the Vardo top-
secret radar base in northern Norway on June 24, to investigate 
its involvement in the Pentagon's missile defence system and 
militarisation of space. Vardo's radar antenna is less than 50 
miles from the Russian border. The radar was developed at 
California's Vandenberg Air Force Base as part of the US National 
Missile Defense System, and then installed at Vardo. Its stated 
purpose is to track debris in space, but the Bulletin of the 
Atomic Scientists has said its real mission is to monitor Russian 
nuclear missile launches.

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CHINA: China has increased its financial support for its 
farm sector in the first five months of this year by 2.5 per cent 
to US$302 billion from the same period last year. The increase is 
aimed at addressing the income gap between rural and urban 
workers which is partly blamed for millions of rural workers 
going to the cities to seek jobs.