Thursday, April 09, 2009
China to Spend Billions Building Hospitals, Clinics
China has promised to improve health care services to all residents by 2020, in response to a public outcry for increased benefits.
The Government says it will extend basic health care to 90% of its population by 2011, and continue the reforms throughout the decade.
The plan calls for spending $124 billion In the first three years to build thousands of hospitals and give every village a clinic.
China dismantled its public health care system in the 1980s, amid economic reforms and a trend toward privatization. But the gap between the rich and poor has widened since then, and health care has increasingly become harder for the poor to obtain, especially in the countryside.
An estimated 20% of rural residents and about half of urban residents have medical insurance. But most of China's 1.3 billion people have to pay for their health care costs. A serious illness can wipe out a family's savings.Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Video of North Korean ICBM Test
The New York Times has published a link to a YouTube-hosted video simulation of what a successful North Korean satellite launch might have looked like. Click below.
And click here to read what John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which has in the past referenced and linked to China Confidential, says about the North Korean missile threat. He, too, suspects that the Stalinist/Kimist state may have already deployed cargo ships with concealed and loaded missile launching systems, and that the vessels may "already lurk off American coasts." There is no known defense against this type of missile threat.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
The Taepodong-2 ballistic missile traveled 1,900 miles before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, twice as far as any previous North Korean missile.
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