Nuclear weapons or nuclear power stations?

Article- Australia may sell uranium to Indian nuclear plant (THE STRAITS TIMES, 27/7/07)

Recently, there are many nuclear issues occurring around the world, with the North Korea's nuclear threat being the most significant one. With North Korea using its nuclear weapon technology as a bargaining chip to get more benefits for itself, there are now more reports of other countries that might be possible threats of nuclear weapon technology.

As stated from the article, "since Australia's decision to supply uranium to China last year, India has been pressuring Australia to sell the nuclear fuel to India as well."
Although both countries claimed to use the uranium to fuel nuclear power stations to meet the soaring demand from thier booming economies, the presence of nuclear weapons in these countries made the statement doubtful. Why is it that these countries cannot use other forms of fuel to provide energy?

However, the trade will most probably continue as this will benefit all the parties, with the uranium used in nuclear power stations to support their booming ecnomy as well as Australia gaining monetary benefit from the trade.

Impacts of demographic changes

In your view, what are the likely political and socio-economic impacts of the demographic changes we see in the world today?

Demographic changes are occurring in many parts of the world today- in India there is a high population growth due to gender preference and in Japan the opposite is occurring due to low birth rate. But no matter what the demographic changes are, there are negative and positive impacts to such changes.

As stated in the video “World in the Balance” (Channel News Asia, 15/7/07, 7.30pm), Japan’s low birth rate of 1.3 per woman coupled with a large number of unmarried youths due to women pursuing career success has led to the number of elderly in Japan outnumbering the young. What this would lead to is a large decrease in the number of workers, consumers and a need for more immigrants. This would thus lead to a decline in the nation’s economy as a smaller production source and a lack of consumers to purchase the products and services. A possible social impact that could arise from this could be the government providing more encouragement to increase birth rates or even the provision of more incentives to citizens giving birth to more children.

In the case of Kenya, a large number of cases of HIV results in a higher death rate than birth rate, causing a population decline as well. The large number of HIV cases is due to the commonplace scenario of women selling their bodies when they desperately are in need of money, sometimes just to get a meal. Similarly, this could lead to the economy decline as mentioned in the Japan’s issue. One political impact that could arise from the Kenya’s case is the government’s intervention to remove prostitution from the country. Although this measure might be too drastic, it is definitely necessary if the government wants to solve the problems occurring due to the large number of HIV cases in Kenya.

In India’s situation, gender preference is causing high population growth, where the number of young outnumbers the number of elderly. In India, boys are favoured over girls as boys will be able to stay with the family and dowry has to be provided by the girl’s family should there be a marriage. This would also lead to economy decline as there is not enough jobs for the people, leading to extreme poverty in several places. Also, part of the income of the nation is probably used to provide for aid to areas of extreme poverty thus leading to a decline in economy.

Remanufacturing- a feasible way to save environment?

Article- TIMES, manufacturing(23/7/07)

Remanufacturing is one method to revive machinery, be it vehicles, copiers, compressors or even mobile phones. What it does is to dismantle the unused product and those parts which are salvageable are either cleaned or refurbished. These parts are ready to be reassembled to form the original product with the addition of some new parts. With remanufacturing, the product could have a life extension of many more years. As stated by a University of Bayreuth study, the amount of raw materials saved annually by remanufacturing is 14 million tons. Hence, this technology would look enticing to environmentalist, especially in a world where raw materials are scarce and limited .

However, there are also the problem of profitability for the companies that go into such remanufacturing businesses. As stated from the article, this technology minimised the material costs to 40%, as compared to 70% for a new product and the energy costs is 85% lower than in making new products. In addition, these products can be sold at prices 50-60% cheaper than new products.

Hence, with the environmental and economic advantages of remanufacturing as well as the cheaper price for consumers, which guarantee a demand for such products, remanufacturing is definitely one feasible way to save the environment.

'China-Free' food for better health?

Article- Promoting 'Chine-Free food for better health(8/7/2007)

This article I read is about a US health food company labelling its products as 'China-Free' and emphasising that none of its ingredients come from China to ease concerns about contamination. This 'discrimination' against China food products is probably due to the many issues regarding food contamination on China products. One of these issues is on a US couple filing a lawsuit saying their son suffered "severe, bloody diarrhoea" after eating a snack with its seasoning made from imported Chinese ingredients tested to be positive for bacteria. With so many issues pinpointing China for the problem of food contamination, it is not surprising that the US health company made such an act.

However, it might not be fair to China as well. It might be true that some China food producers disregarded the safety of consumers when they are producing their products but not all the companies in China are doing it and the labelling of products as "China-Free" would be unfair to the companies who are not disregarding consumers' safety. In addition, China's food and drug watchdog are making an effort to solve this problem and has pulled off production licenses of five drug makers and penalising 128 others in the past year. Since China has made significant effort to solve this problem and only a minority is contributing to food contamination, should it not be the case that other countries give China a chance to prove itself?

In conclusion, I feel that the"China-Free" products is a move that is too extreme to ease concerns about contamination problems.

Crime and Punishment

Effective law and order requires effective punishment. Do you agree?

It is important that effective law and effective punishment comes hand in hand. Without effective punishments, laws would not be as useful as it should have been. A law without any punishments included is as if to tell the criminal to commit more crimes and not get any consequences for his doings. Similarly, when ineffective punishments are imposed for laws, the criminals would still continue to commit the same crimes as the punishments will not deter them from committing more crimes. Hence, effective laws will ensure the effectiveness of the law and order in a country. A good example would be Singapore, where the effective laws, coupled with effective punishments, ensured law and order in the country. This could be shown by the extremely low crime rate in Singapore. However, some countries, usually the less developed ones, have ineffective punishments. One example would the use of boiling oil to test the integrity of the suspects. Though this might be useful for some criminals that has no courage to retrieve the ring in the boiling oil, it might not be useful for others as this is merely a test of courage and endurance of pain. Hence, in this case, effective law and order is not ensured as there is ineffective punishment.

Any form of punishment that is effective in maintaining law and order is justified. Do you agree?

I do not agree that any form of punishment that is effective in maintaining law and order is justified. Examples of such punishments which I do not agree should be used would be inhumane as well as sadistic punishments. Such punishments might be able to deter many others from committing the crime which a criminal that received the punishment has done, but it will also result in many who resent such a government that uses such punishment on criminals. What could eventually result might be the overthrowing of the government. Ultimately, this would disrupt the law and order in the country as well. However, most effective punishments will be able to maintain long term law and order without creating resentment in the people. Such punishments should be justified.