1 China manufacturing activity picks up (BBC) China's
factory activity grew in May at its fastest pace this year, according to
government figures, a positive sign amid the wider economic slowdown. The
official purchasing managers index (PMI) hit 50.8 in the month, up from 50.4 in
April, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Any reading above 50 indicates
growth.
China's government has recently introduced measures
to boost growth. The country's economy grew by 7.4% in the first three months
of the year, down from 7.7% growth in the previous quarter.
Last month, another PMI survey by HSBC gave a
preliminary reading for May of 49.7, also a five-month high. This survey
focuses on smaller companies in the private sector, while the official PMI
survey is weighted more towards bigger, state-owned enterprises.
2 Poland offers half-price treatment to the world
(Miles Brignall in The Guardian) For several years expat Poles have been
returning home to get expensive dental work, plastic surgery and procedures
such as hip replacements done at 30% to 60% of the cost they would pay in their
adopted country.
Now a Polish government-backed initiative is
promoting medical tourism into the country, targeting non-Poles from across the
world, particularly those in Scandinavia, Germany, eastern Europe – and the UK.
Those behind the plan hope Poland's location at the heart of Europe – along
with its plethora of low-cost flights, cheap accommodation, and attractive
tourist cities such as Krakow – will be enough to tip the increasingly
competitive battle for medical tourism in Poland's favour.
The EU directive that came into force last year
giving consumers the right to use health services in other European countries
will only further its bid to become the medical tourism centre of Europe,
officials hope. Implants that cost around £2,500 in the UK can be had at
Dentestetica for under £1,000, while ceramic veneers are half the £600 UK
price.
According to Magdalena Rutkowska, who heads Poland's
medical tourism development programme, which is 75% funded by EU money, around
320,000 people visited the country for treatment in 2012 – of which 42% came
for plastic surgery, notably breast implants. A third came to use dentists,
while 9% came for obesity-related treatments such as gastric bands, which in
Poland typically cost 40% of the €10,000 EU average.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/01/poland-medical-tourism-half-price
3 India’s raped reality (Khaleej Times) The
aftermath of the horrific Nirbhaya gang rape in December 2012 in New Delhi, we
had hoped, would break the glass ceiling. Indians came together in a rare show
of solidarity to decry this “most heinous” crime and demanded stricter
anti-rape legislation, greater surveillance and more sensitivity towards
long-neglected women’s issues.
Statisticians, however, will tell you a different
story: that despite all these visible signs of “hope and change” — most notably
transposed on to shrill television studios and people’s protest gatherings —
the incidence of sex crimes against women has actually gone up. The recent
gang-rape in a sleepy village in Uttar Pradesh of two Dalit girls, aged 14 and
16, whose bodies were discovered hanging from a mango tree, has — again —
reopened the can of worms.
Caste is being blamed for this particular gang rape.
Evidently, if you belong to lower castes (like the Dalits), that alone warrants
a sexual crime — according to twisted, misogynist mindsets prevailing in the
Indian hinterland. The likely fallout of this is a polarisation of social
thinking: the Us vs Them one. When city slickers emotionally insulate
themselves from rural reality by saying “this is how the ‘Other India’ lives”.
There needs to be a blurring of lines, and sensibilities.
And in the gentrified ethos of India’s urban spaces
people need to realise the greater truth India encapsulates: that screaming in
television studios and writing opinion pieces in the Western Press will not
help solve a problem that is so systemically embedded in grassroots.
Some commentators have pointed out that even women’s
rights organisations are not reacting to the Badaun gang rape with the same
passion as they would to a “city-centric” one. If the epidemic of rape has to
be addressed in India, activism cannot be restricted to urban candlelit vigils
and social media frenzy. That’s not how most of India lives — or thinks.
http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=/data/editorial/2014/June/editorial_June2.xml§ion=editorial
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