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[brian]

Afghan poppies 'could help NHS' 23 January 2007

Leading doctors say Afghanistan's opium-poppy harvest should be used to tackle an NHS shortage of diamorphine. The British Medical Association says the poppy fields should be used this way, helping Afghans and NHS patients, rather than be destroyed. Diamorphine, also known as heroin, is used to relieve pain after operations and for the terminally ill. But the UK and Afghan governments reject using the poppy fields to address the UK's diamorphine shortage. However, UK doctors say the diamorphine shortage is getting worse, leaving them reliant on less effective, more expensive alternatives. Dr Jonathan Fielden, a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine in Reading, said: "Unfortunately over the last year in particular, the availability of diamorphine has dramatically reduced. "It's not clear why this is, but it has got to the stage where it is almost impossible in some hospitals to get hold of this drug for use outside very specific circumstances. "This is a great shame because it is such a good drug".

Barriers - The BMA has proposed a radical solution - harnessing the Afghan opium-poppy crop to produce diamorphine for the NHS. It says this would benefit patients while providing much-needed income for Afghan farmers. Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the BMA, said it was time for a new approach. "If we actually were harvesting this drug from Afghanistan rather than destroying it, we'd be benefiting the population of Afghanistan as well as helping patients and not putting people at risk. "There must be ways of harvesting it and making sure that the harvest safely reaches the drug industry which would then refine it into diamorphine. "It should be possible, and really government and the international groups that are in Afghanistan should be looking at this and saying how can we convert it from being an illicit crop to a legal crop that is medicinally useful." The Department of Health acknowledges there's been a shortage of diamorphine, but it says the situation is improving. A spokeswoman said: "We have been in discussion with other possible entrants to the market, but there are barriers to be overcome. "One of the problems is that diamorphine injection has to be freeze-dried. "This is a specialised process and there is limited production capacity both in the UK and elsewhere in the world."

'Direct benefits' - The Afghan authorities - backed by the UK government - reject the idea of local licensing to produce poppies for medicines. They're stepping up their programme of poppy crop eradication, and prosecution of drug-traffickers. However Emmanuel Reinert, executive director says destroying poppy crops will only encourage people to support the Taleban. "The licensing system should be established at the village level, and the morphine should be produced at the village level. "Therefore the mark-up will benefit directly to the villagers and the farmers and all the families. "And it would be easy to export from the village to Kabul and then to the rest of the world, tablets from Afghanistan." Other charities working in Afghanistan, including Christian Aid, are sceptical. They say the best solution is to provide long-term support such as irrigation projects to help farmers produce other crops. Dr. Fielden accepted that persuading the international community to try the idea would not be easy. "The biggest difficulty will be changing the views of those countries, particularly the US, where this drug is banned. "That will take a great cultural change to let them realise that a very cheap drug, easily produced, beneficial to patients, can be brought back in and used, rather than being seen as a drug of abuse."

Living in China's coal heartland 22 January 2007

At a temperature of -10C (14F), in the grey-blue dawn, two schoolchildren have a thankless job to complete. They are meant to sweep away the soot, dirt and grime from the school gate. But this village is surrounded by coal mines and power stations, so it is impossible to get anything clean. Inside, a class of 10-year-olds works its way through its early-morning reading lesson. The children all have dirty hands and faces. In this village, once you get grubby, you stay grubby. Winter makes things worse. "When it comes to this time of year, one quarter of students get respiratory diseases," says the head teacher, Zhao Xiangjing. "We sometimes give them shots to try to prevent them all getting ill. But we always have someone coughing." This small village, Ge Zhuo Tou, is in the middle of China's central Shanxi province. It is the heart of the country's coal belt. All around, coal-fired power stations provide energy for the much of the rest of the country. But it comes at a price. China suffers from some of the worst pollution in the world. Every year, it is estimated that around 400,000 people in China die prematurely from pollution-related illnesses.

Respiratory diseases - On top of a hill, the windows of the Wang de Meng family home rattle whenever a coal train goes by. From their front door, patrolled by guard dogs, you can make out the nearby mines and factories dumping smoke into the air. At dinner time, they try to wash away the taste of pollution with some weak soup. They say they feel abandoned by their leaders. "The village leaders don't live here," says Zhang Xianjiang, pointing his finger. "They live in the city where it's cleaner. But we don't have any money, so we have to stay where we are." An oxygen cylinder stands in the corner of the one-room house belonging to 73-year-old Zhang Mingzhi. He suffers from lung disease. He lies in bed, his face swollen, barely able to move. His wife, Feng Lingmei, has to spoon-feed him. Her eyes are red. "The air is so bad," she says. "On winter days like this, he can't go out, he gets worse, he just can't breathe."

Haze - The village clinic is just down the road. Wang Derong sits in his office, smoking a cigarette. "I've been working here for 20 years," he says, "With more and more mines, the pollution has got worse. More and more people get respiratory diseases. Some people just can't pay for their medicine - so we let them write IOUs. I haven't told the village leaders about this." In mid-afternoon, the haze is so bad that cars almost need headlights to see where they are going. There is no wind, so the pollution from nearby mines and factories just sits in the air. Dozens of coal trucks head along the main road. China may be trying to develop alternative energy sources. But right now in winter, more than a billion people need to keep warm, and carry on working. The coal from this province does the j ob. The residents of Ge Zhuo Tou can feel it for themselves with every breath.

Nigerian houses swallowed by sand 23 January 2007

Ciroma Mohammed is standing on the spot he says was once occupied by his house in north-east Nigeria. "We lose houses to the desert every year," he says from the village of Bulamadu in Yobe State. The fine sand is swallowing up houses and roads every year. Almost all the villagers in this dusty arid region say they have lost homes and farms to the Sahara Desert which is expanding southwards. "What we do is that when the sand moves and buries our homes and farms and even our wells, we simply keep retreating southwards," says Aminu Mahmud, another villager who says he has already lost two different houses to the sand. He says the situation deteriorates every April when strong pre-rainy season sandstorms sweep sand into their settlements.

Water - "The desert's unrelenting onslaught is pushing us further away from our original homes and it seems there's absolutely nothing we can do about it," Mr Mahmud says. "The desert has swallowed up our houses, our farms, our roads, our lives. It has changed our livelihoods." A middle-aged Muslim woman who did not want her photograph taken says women in Bulamadu now spend most of the day travelling long distances in search of potable water. "Water has become more precious than gold now," the woman who introduced herself as Mairo said, as she sat frying bean cakes known as kosai. "You wake up one morning and the water well that was there yesterday has been buried under the sand. As a result, most of us women have to trek long distances to get water."

Firewood - The villagers do not seem to see any link between their large appetite for firewood and the advancing sand dunes. They keep cutting down trees in the vicinity and using sun-dried branches as wood fuel or even as an income earner. "The impact the advancing desert is having on communities in that area is quite serious," says Jacob Nyanganji of Nigeria's University of Maiduguri which runs a specialist centre for arid zone studies. "It is true that homes and farms have been lost to desertification in the area and it is also true that people's livelihoods have either been lost or changed completely as a result."

Nature at work - Further east in a village called Damasak, Sani Yunusa, 56, says the sand dunes were "not so strange". He claims he had witnessed something similar as a child. "The sand should not prevent people from cutting down trees as they have been doing for centuries," he says. "Desertification is just nature at work and it will reverse itself when it is ready." But Mr Yunusa is no expert on desertification and the experts say that the march of the sand towards Nigeria's south has become almost irreversible. And the more trees villagers in Bulamadu and Damask cut down, the faster the sand dunes gallop towards the coastline to the country's south.

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代 amy shis post

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[brian]

Afghan poppies 'could help NHS'

afghanistan 阿富汗
afghan = 阿富汗人;阿富汗語
poppy =【植】罌粟;鴉片
NHS = National Health Service (英國)國家衛生事業局
opium-poppy = 鴉片
harvest =v.收割
shortage = 缺少,不足,匱乏
diamorphine = 存嗎啡 http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/100000751.html
dia- = 表示"徹底","完全";"離開";"橫過"
morphine = 嗎啡
Association 協會,公會
patient = n.病人
rather than = 而不是
be/get used to 習慣於
operations 手術
the terminally ill = 處於末期症狀上,在晚期(患病)
illness 患病(狀態);身體不適
address v.提供
reliant a.依賴的;依靠的
alternative 替代的;供選擇的
anaesthesia n.醫】感覺缺失,麻木.麻醉(法)
intensive care 重病特別護理
particular 特殊的;特定的;特別
dramatically 戲劇性地;引人注目地
drug 麻醉藥品;毒品
specific 特殊的,特定的
circumstance 情況,環境;情勢
shame 羞恥(心),羞愧(感)


Barrier 障礙物;路障,柵欄
BMA = British Medical Association 英國醫師協會
radical 根本的,基本的;徹底的
harness
n.馬具,挽具;保險帶;安全帶
vt.給...上挽具;套(馬)[(+to)]
治理,利用;控制,駕馭
ethic 倫理(學)的;道德的
approach 方法
population 人們
put sth. at 估計
illicit 非法的,不法的,違禁的;
crop 作物,莊稼[
legal 合法的,正當的
acknowledge v.承認
overcome v.戰勝;克服
injection 注射劑,注射液
capacity 容量,容積


authority 官方,當局;權力;職權
step up 增加;加快
programme = program = 程序
eradication 根除;消滅
prosecution 起訴,告發;檢舉
drug-trafficker 毒品商人;販子
encourage v.促進,助長;激發
executive director 執行長
Taleban
The Taliban is a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist movement which effectively ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, and is currently engaged in a protracted guerilla war against NATO forces within Afghanistan.
established 已建立的;已確立的;已制定的
Kabul 喀布爾(阿富汗首都)
tablet 藥片
charity 慈善
Christian Aid is an agency of the major Christian churches in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It works with local partner organisations in over 60 countries around the world to help the world's poorest communities. Christian Aid works where the need is greatest, regardless of religion or race.
irrigation 灌溉
accept 接受;應允 ;相信[+that]
persuade 說服,勸服
particularly 特別,尤其
banned 被禁的,被取締的
cultural 種植的;培養的
realise = realize 領悟,了解,認識到[+(that)]
abuse v.濫用,妄用

[brian]

Living in China's coal heartland

coal mine 煤礦
heartland 心臟地區
dawn 黎明,拂曉
thankless 徒勞無功的;吃力不討好的
meant = mean pp
sweep away 掃;清掃,(清光光)
soot 煤灰;煤煙;油煙
dirt 污物;爛泥;灰塵
grime 塵垢;污點
power station 發電站
grubby 生蛆的;骯髒的;卑鄙的
one quarter of students get respiratory diseases
1/4的學生得到 呼吸的 疾病
shoot 給...注射
prevent 防止,預防
cough 咳嗽;咳嗽病
Shanxi province 山西省
coal-fired 燒煤的
energy 能,能量
worst pollution 最惡劣地污染
estimate 評價;判斷
prematurely 過早地;貿然地


rattle 使發出咯咯聲
patrolled 巡邏;巡查
guard dog 警衛狗,看門狗
make out 辨別出;理解
dump 傾倒;拋棄
abandon 丟棄;拋棄,遺棄
oxygen cylinder 氧氣筒
belong to (在所有權等方面)屬於
swollen (pp) swell 腫起,腫脹


Haze 霾,薄霧
clinic 診所,門診所
cigarette 香煙,紙煙,煙卷
IOU = I owe you 借條
dozens of 許多
alternative 兩者(或若干)中擇一的
carry on 繼續
resident 居民,定居者;僑民

[brian]

Nigerian houses swallowed by sand


Nigerian 奈及利亞的;奈及利亞人的
swallow up 淹沒,吞沒
on the spot 當場
occupy v. 佔(時間,空間);佔用;住
dusty 滿是灰塵的,灰塵覆蓋的
arid 乾旱的;乾燥的;不毛的
region 地區,地帶;行政區域
Sahara Desert 撒哈拉沙漠(北非)沙漠
southward 向南的
bury 埋葬,安葬
retreat 撤退
deteriorate v.惡化
sandstorm 沙暴
sweep 清掃
settlement 殖民;定居


unrelenting 無情的
onslaught 突擊,猛攻
further 更遠的
absolutely 絕對地,完全地
livelihood 生活;生計
distance 距離;路程
potable 適於飲用的


appetite 愛好,食慾,胃口[(+for)]
sand dune 沙丘
vicinity 附近地區;近處,近鄰
fuel 燃料
specialist 專家
centre = center
arid 乾旱的;乾燥的;不毛的
desertification 沙漠化


claim 要求,聲稱;主張
witness 目擊者;見證人;為...作證,證明
prevent 防止,預防
reverse 徹底改變;顛倒,翻轉
expert 專家;能手;熟練者
towards 向,朝;面對
irreversible 不可逆的;不能翻轉的
gallop 疾馳,飛跑
coastline 海岸線