The Food - In All Midst Of Scarcity Of Source And Finance

The Washington-based poverty-fighting institution said its food price index increased by 15% between October 2010 and January 2011.
It is just 3% below its 2008 peak during the last food price crisis and it thus translates into a 29% rise in food prices over the course of a year.

World Bank data released two days ago showed higher food prices for wheat, maize, sugars and edible oils.
Maize prices soar about 73% over six months, while prices for sugar for fats and oils have risen 20 and 22% respectively, in the past quarter alone.
It cautioned that rice prices needed monitoring given measures by some countries to significantly import more rice to boost domestic stocks. 
The rise in food prices have pushed 44 million more people in developing countries into extreme poverty since June 2010.

Catastrophic storms and droughts have hurt the world's leading agriculture-producing countries, including flooding and a massive cyclone in Australia, major winter storms in the United States, and fires last year in Russia.

Beijing has earmarked 13 billion yuan to combat drought.
The dry spell in northern China's wheat heartland has caused considerable concern abroad and even sparked a UN warning last week about the impact on winter crops, a key harvest for the world's biggest producer of the grain.
Dry spell had affected at least 7.7 million hectares of wheat crops but snow fell over the weekend across much of northern China including major wheat-producing provinces Shandong and Henan had somehow eased some concern.

China has sought to alleviate fears that will affect international food prices.
It has announced measures including diverting water to affected areas and constructing emergency wells and irrigation facilities.
The country is said to have "abundant" reserves of grain that were sufficient to meet the nation's needs.
If China were to buy a large amount of wheat overseas due to a crop failure, prices on world commodity markets would surge at a time when food costs are already causing governments headaches.

Huge swings in prices are characteristic of the latest bout of food inflation.
Asian inflation is amongst the most sensitive in the world to food price shocks, despite the likely introduction of further food subsidies and other price controls.

World Bank chief, Robert Zoellick said global food prices have reached "dangerous levels".
He warned of the impact that could complicate fragile political and social conditions in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The recent food price rises are causing pain and suffering for poor people around the globe.
He warned that a sharp rise in food prices across Central Asia could also have social and political implications for that region.

Although higher food prices were not the main cause leading to recent protests in Egypt and Tunisia, it was an aggravating factor and could become worse.
A World Bank team was currently in Tunisia taking a closer look at the country's transition and assessing possible financing needs, including food assistance.

Egypt to him, may not need World Bank funds because its financing situation "is one that should be able to be managed" over the short term.
He was concerned that countries as Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan address causes of their social upheaval, higher food prices may add to "the fragility that is always there any time you have revolutions and transitions."

******

26-year-old Mohamed from Tunisia origin the series of demonstrations.

Since Mohamed could not find a job, he did an honest petty trade, sold fruits as a mobile hawker to feed his family of seven.

Despite that, he was often harassed, intimidated and bullied by the police.

Aspiring Mohamed had a dream, he had always wanted to buy a small van to expand his business, to avoid the police every few days.

However, his wish remained just a dream, an illusion, when on December last year, he was caught by a policewoman - Not only his fruits was confiscated, but his electronic weighing scales too.

To add salt to the already wounded wound, he was present with a slap on his face.

Not only was his business destroyed, he was humiliated too.

In indignant injustice, he protested by committing self-immolation in front of a government building.

The fire took the life of Mohamed, but ignited the flame of dissatisfaction with the government in North Africa. The Tunisian government eventually collapsed.

******

The Mohamed flare sparked the demonstration tide spread to Egypt.

Compared with the small country of Tunisia, Egypt has a population of 80 million, nearly half of the population is living on less than US$2 per day.

As many as 90% of the youths are under the age of 30. 

Around 60% of the entire population are unemployed, and many among them are highly educated but... jobless.

With no job and no income, yet the cost of living keeps escalating, they are living under great pressure, and staying afloat to survive is becoming more crucial.

But the government remained indifferent.

Resentment and bitterness accumulated.

This is one of the factor that aggravates their dissatisfaction with the 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak.

The sacrificial death of Tunisian hero Mohamed has inspired the Egyptians to rise, mobilise and organise to fight for changes in their country.

The current situation in Egypt has caused concern around the world.

When times are good, housing, food and clothing are not the cause of worry, maybe official corruption, government mismanagement, and the existence of authoritarian regimes, could at least be tolerated.

But once daily needs are at stake and there is insufficient food on the table, people will rise against their government. 

Many citizens in the Middle East countries have almost similar destiny with the Egyptians and Tunisians. They are now expressing solidarity. 

Perhaps, the Mohamed flame is not just spreading in North Africa and the Middle East, but may spread all around the world - There are just too many Mohameds worldwide.

Regardless of any race, language, religion or ideology, Mohameds or not, as long as there is insufficient or no food at all, on the table, the grumbling of the empty stomach is all the same, all over the world.

If the government does not respond or pay heed to the voice and needs of the people, they will be condemned and more often than not, ousted.

The World Bank chief said the international community needed to be aware of such risks and should not exacerbate problems by imposing policies, such as export bans or price fixing, that would push global food prices even higher.

Global security is now about food security issue as he said, "There is no silver bullet to resolving the potent combination of rising and volatile food prices."

******

Unlike the 2007-08 food crisis, higher prices have not yet affected all regions of the world.
Across Asia and in some parts of Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, costlier food is pushing up inflationary pressures.
"Central Asia is a region where these good prices have increased substantially and given the poverty level... there is a real stress point that could have social and political implications," The World Bank chief, Zoellick said.

Meanwhile, good harvests in Sub-Saharan Africa have so far spared that region from rising prices.
There was less margin for error in Africa because of high poverty rates across the region, although in Burundi and Cameroon where bean prices, an important food source, have risen by more than 40%.

The bank said that the price rise swelled the ranks living in extreme poverty, which it defines as under US$1.25 (S$1.60) a day per person, forcing poorer people to eat less and often less-nutritious food and increasing malnutrition.
The poor spend more than 80% of their total disposable income on basic foods.
If prices keep rising, poor families have lesser and less nutritional food to keep them healthy.

Rich donor countries needed to focus food aid on Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, which face acute food price spikes.
Countries with limited farming space and low international foreign exchange reserves in their budgets, yet import commodities in large quantities may need funding help.
These countries are urged to scale up social programs to protect the nations.
Jittery commodity markets should be made calm by all international community.

Whether or not there is food on the table is no more a mere personal problem, but an issue of dire consequences, affecting even the survival of a government.
The tidal wave after wave of demonstrations in the North African countries is a wake-up call, and its revolutionary echo is reverberating around the world.

******

However, as in Egypt and Tunisia, technology is playing its part.
Technology keeps Africans informed about what they are owed.
With more than 500 million mobile phones in Africa, compared with around 50 million a decade ago, African governments risk unrest of their own citizens.

The continent is facing as many as 17 elections this year against the backdrop of seismic political upheaval in the Middle East.
Voters might take to the streets or using the ballot box to demand what is supposed to be due to them.
Many African countries are due to have elections within the next two years.
The nation wants a decent share of what belongs to them - The continent's wealth.

The continent  is home to 90% of the world’s platinum reserves and a large chunk of world's gold.
It is said, Africa has about 30% of the world’s mineral resources yet it only produces about 10% of the world’s minerals.

How great is the wealth sitting beneath Africa’s soil?

Doesn't the wealth waiting for calls?

Will it continue to be preserved?

Benefiting no citizen who should deserve?

Will it be evenly shared by all?

Or just by a family despite the nation's fall?

Extreme Weather Pushes Food Prices Higher - February 2, 1011

Extreme Weather Events Helps Drive Food Prices To Record Highs - January 6, 2011

Ramadhan Kareem, Bless Us All

Ahlan waSahlan Marhaban ya Ramadhan.

The ninth and holiest month is here again.
Many of the world's one and a half billion Muslims has started performing their terawih, the annual month-long night prayer.

An Egyptian vendor display traditional lanterns for sale in Cairo, Egypt Tuesday, Aug 3, 2010, in preparation for Ramadan.

When life is made easy for me and the rest of us, having the choice of  where to perform our terawih  and  where to get our porridge,  at just our fingertips, there are others out there who are struggling for a decent and proper living. They are deprived of the basics in life. I wonder how those people in countries under landslides, flood and fire going to spend their Ramadhan.

******  

In Pakistan 

   

People in Pakistan are reeling from two weeks of flooding that has killed 1,500 and affected nearly 14 million people. There are those who are now trapped by the high water. Villages along the motorway from Peshawar to Islamabad are inundated and women waded through knee-high water. This flood is one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Pakistan. Pakistanis are trapped by the floods. Dozen of bridges destroyed and roads washed out. The floods destroyed dozens of buildings and hotels. There are no food in the market and no electricity. This torrential monsoon rains flooded Pakistan has sparked massive humanitarian crisis. Religious charities moved fast - Faster than the Pakistan government that worried US. A number of organisations highly visible in the battle to help provide relief to millions of flood survivors to fill the void created by the perceived failure of the civilian government to mobilise and fears are growing that such charities are using soft power to propagate extremism. The battle for hearts and minds has been drawn.    "So far we have helped 250,000 people," AFP was told by a man at a camp set up by Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a welfare organisation in the district of Nowshehra, where dozens of bearded volunteers dished out food. Pakistan's government, cash-strapped, have been accused of infighting. The government gave the flood victims tents and nothing else. Six million people are now dependent on help to survive and enormous number of local and highly reputable NGOs and the international NGOs have already mobilised for this crisis. All goods and help have been supplied by affluent, ordinary citizens and private organisations.

******

In China Fresh heavy rains fell for about four hours overnight today brought more misery to a town in northwest China, devastated by mudslides that had already levelled an area five kilometres long and 300 metres wide. 1,117 people were already confirmed dead, another 627 residents went missing, and three more disappeared overnight. At least 45,000 people have evacuated their homes, and 30,000 tents were delivered with thousands more on the way. Zhouqu has a population of 134,000, Xinhua news agency reported the shortest route used by relief crews into Zhouqu, a town nestled in the mountains of Gansu province, from the provincial capital Lanzhou was blocked. It turned one of the main streets in Zhouqu into a small river and flooding army tents on the roadside leading into the disaster zone.

Entire communities in Gansu province were swallowed when the debris-choked Bailong River jumped its banks early Sunday, releasing wave after wave of mud and rubble-strewn water. The water level in the Bailong river, which cuts through Zhouqu, was said to be higher yesterday. Crews using explosives and excavators rushed to drain the unstable barrier lake that was created by the rubble that, if it were to burst, could bring further destruction to areas already levelled by the torrent of mud. Floodwaters up to three storeys high have submerged half the county and the peaks surrouding the town were shrouded in dark clouds. The town was effectively split into two. Buildings were torn from their foundations, their lower floors blown out by the force of the debris-laden water. Three villages comprising hundreds of households were entirely buried and much of the county seat was submerged. Thousands of soldiers and rescuers, joined by traumatised survivors, were battling to clean up roads by using diggers, blocked by the massive avalanche of mud, cascading rocks and sludge unleashed by storms overnight, complicating the task of seeing to the needs of the living. Getting and distributing of food, water and medicine to those in need is no easy task. Clean drinking water was a primary concern, with most local sources destroyed or too polluted to use. AFP correspondent witnessed some shops in town had run out of drinking, but new supplies appeared to be trickling in. Fears of an outbreak of water-borne disease mounted, with corpses still unclaimed and residents living in the rough without proper sanitary conditions. Disinfectant crews in chemical suits repeatedly sprayed disinfectant in the area. Although there have been no reports of an epidemic outbreak, crews in protective suits sprayed chemicals across the ground and over machinery as the smell of death heavy in the air. State media reported numerous cases of dysentery, while infected injuries, a lack of sanitation, clean drinking water and accumulating garbage increased the risk of typhoid, cholera and other diseases. China Daily reported tons of garlic and Sichuan pepper, which were believed to be helpful in the prevention of certain ailments, have been sent to Zhouqu. Loudspeakers in town broadcast messages instructing residents how to protect themselves from disease. Nearly 800 medical workers, concerned about the high summer temperatures that could affect the precarious public health situation, have been dispatched to the scene. Although relatives were encouraged to cremate the remains of their loved ones as soon as possible to prevent health problems, but in the area with a population that is one-third Tibetan, traditional burials are preferred. Throughout the area, bodies were seen wrapped in blankets and tied to sticks or placed on planks and left on the shattered streets for pickup. The bad weather was expected to continue as the National Meteorological Centre warned there was a "relatively large" chance of more landslides in the coming days, as heavier rain was expected, with up to 3 1/2 inches forecast for Friday. While torrential rains were the direct cause of the flood, previous activites of mass tree cutting had left the dry hills exposed and the weakening of cliff faces by a massive 2008 earthquake were seen as contributing factors. The mudslides are the latest in a string of weather-related disasters, as China battles its worst flooding in a decade that has killed more than 2,000 people this year and 12 million evacuated before the Gansu tragedy. It has caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions.

******

In Russia

The last Russia's deadliest wildfires were in 1972 and on last Wednesday, Russian forestry official said fires have scorched forests contaminated with radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but it was unclear how dangerous the smoke might be.

Fears of stirring up nuclear pollution from the Chernobyl disaster could take the crisis to a new level, though officials said radiation levels were normal in Moscow.
Strong winds cleared the toxic smoke that has choked Moscow for three weeks on Wednesday, and Muscovites got a glimpse of clear skies after a thunderstorm accompanied by strong winds in the early hours dispersed the smoke.

Some young Russians rejoiced in the rains, dancing in the downpour and cheering the thunder and lightning. But weather forecasters warned it could return in 24 hours.

Fires covering an area of 39 square kilometers (15 square miles) had been registered in regions with forests polluted with radiation included Bryansk province, which borders Ukraine southwest of Moscow and was polluted by radioactive dust that billowed across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Europe after a series of explosions at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 on April 26, 1986.

Radioactive particles could be propelled into the air, in the event of a fire in forests in the Bryansk region said Russian Emergencies Minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Trees, vegetation and the ground that had absorbed some of the nuclear material spewed out in the 1986 accident and blazes were releasing some again into the air.
There is a remobilization of Chernobyl material. That is a side of biomass burning that is under-communicated. There is plenty of this still around.

"The sins of our fathers revisit us." Reuters was told.

The toxic smog over Moscow has some economists believe to eat 0.5% of Russia's GDP.

Russia's deadly summer heatwave, probably the worst in Russian history, had lasted for an uninterrupted 50-day.
The more than 600 wildfires had sent pollution to the highest levels in decades - almost doubled mortality rates in the capital and disrupted flights, consumer activity and even trading in Russian stocks and bonds.

However, the area of burning forests in Russia had almost halved in the past 24 hours to 927 square km (358 square miles) from 1,740 square km (676 square miles), and that nearly 166,000 people were fighting the blazes that raged.

The fire had burnt the expected 4% 2010 economic growth.
Even with the emergency pumping of 54 billion roubles ($1.81 billion) into the firefighting force, it would not fix the gutted fire-protection system and sorely lacks equipment.whose weaknesses have been exposed by the wildfires.
The sweltering weather would not abate this week and hundreds of people are believed to have died from the effects of the heatwave and smoke choking.

Then there's the aggravated drought.
Kremlin leaders are already grappling with drought that has destroyed crops after what weather monitoring officials say was the country's hottest summer in a millennium.
Nobody was to be blame but the forces of nature.

"This is a new challenge from the heavens." Russian mayor said.

The Reluctant Organs Have Their Final Say

The Star: July 12, 2010 - Tainted Organ Transplants

 

SUBANG JAYA: Some Malaysians who went abroad for organ transplants have returned home with HIV, hepatitis and other problems, a World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser said. “It is time to amend laws and establish a full-time agency to have more and ethical organ donations in the country,” said Prof Dr Francis Delmonico, calling on legislators to push for laws against organ trafficking and transplant tourism in Malaysia.
He also suggested that the authorities look into the possibility of organ donation for cases of cardiac death and not only in brain dead cases.
“There are many cases of Malaysians going abroad for organ transplants.
“There is no guarantee of the quality of organs. In many cases, the patients returned with HIV, hepatitis and other problems,’’ said Dr Delmonico, a WHO adviser on human organ transplantation.
He was speaking at a forum on “Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism – The Need for Regulatory and Legislative Control” at the 13th Scientific Meeting of the Malaysian Society of Transplantation at the Grand Dorsett Hotel here on Friday night.
Dr Delmonico said the commercialisation of organs go against the Istanbul Declaration, which proclaims that the poor who sell their organs are being exploited.
The declaration, signed by participants of an international summit on transplant tourism and organ trafficking in 2008, concluded that organ trafficking and transplant tourism violate respect for human dignity and the principles of equity and justice and should be prohibited.
Health Ministry head of nephrology services Dr Ghazali Ahmad, in his talk on “Hurdles of Living Unrelated Organ Donation” said that in 2009, 17 kidney failure patients received transplant from dead donors and nine from live donors.
In 2008, there were 53 from deceased donors and one from a live donor. In 2007, it was 45 from deceased donors and three from live donors.
The statistics were gathered after patients returned home from abroad to seek post-transplant treatment.
Kidney transplants made available from deceased donors were believed to be organs from executed prisoners in China.

******

The Straits Times: June 7, 2010 - Black Organ Market Rakes On Poverty And Hope

Organ trafficking middleman Liu Qiangshen sits in the court showing his side scar left after a liver transplantation operation. (photo by Beijing Morning Post)

Barely coming of age and lacking money, 19-year-old Yang Nian sold almost two thirds of his liver, for which a Beijing patient in urgent need of organ transplant paid 150,000 yuan (S$21,900).

But the money only ended up in the hands of organ trafficking middleman Liu Qiangsheng, who assembled a score of hatchet men to beat up a scarred Yang when he came to claim his liver fees. Yang got a mingy 25,000 yuan (S$3,660), not the promised dole of 35,000 yuan (S$5,130), the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday.

The stomach-turning report details Yang's wait for a suitable buyer in a slum along with other reluctant donors in central Hebei province as well as his physical checkup and identity forgery in order to pass for a legal organ supplier for the Beijing patient

The Beijing patient, at first unwitting of Yang's pathetic compensation, was also threatened by the middleman if he dared refuse further payment out of previous bargain.

"We only learned later that the middleman Liu just gave Yang that little, we are very angry, but we are also very scared and could do nothing," said the patient's wife. The couple paid a huge sum to the middleman, only with borrowed money.

The case, still under investigation, shed light on a rampant organ trafficking market reigned by unscrupulous middlemen, intertwined with hospitals sometimes, who rake in the organ donation dearth in China where for every 150 patients in the waiting line of organ transplant there is only one legal donor.

The black organ market is so organized that it runs like an assembly line.

The middlemen draw together a group of illegal donors, mostly male, offering food and board before ushering them through a series of medical examinations to kick out the unhealthy and the unprofitable, like those with AB blood, accounting only 5 percent of the general population.

The middlemen even help to bribe doctors and secure a better hospital, not to mention the cheap identity fabrication as in Yang's case, since organ donation by a living individual should be among relatives in China.

While, for the most part of the job, it is waiting, sometimes endlessly, for a suitable buyer. That's why most middlemen choose to foster a large donator group, increasing the chance of medical matches, and larger profits.

In Thursday's news report, a middleman in eastern Jiangsu, surnamed Wang, bragged how he fostered 190 underground donors in the past two years and successfully channeled over 30 transplant cases. Another in northeastern Shenyang assured that he could secure an organ donation in three days, and could even offer an extra donor as a backup.

So far the only organ donation regulation in China is a toothless bylaw which forbids, rather than criminalizes, organ trafficking as illegal business operations. Legal specialists said the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

******

 

The Star: June 7, 2010  - China's Grisly Human Organs Market

China's human organs trade is grisly but lucrative

China's black market for human organs is booming.

Nearly 1.5 million people require organ transplants every year but according to the Health Ministry, only ten thousand can get what they need.

China banned organ transplants from living donours in 2007 (with the exception of spouses, blood relatives or adopted family members) and it was not until last year that a national campaign to coordinate donations after death was launched.

A defendant charged with trafficking human organs testified recently that half a liver can cost up to RM21,980.95, while an entire transplant, which includes operation and recovery costs, runs at about RM66,710.00.

"The crime can damage society and moral values," says the Procuratorial Daily.
"I believe I was helping people, not harming others. I saved the life of the person who received my liver. He was only in his 30s. I do not regret it," says defendant, Liu Qiangsheng.

Human organ traffickers have helped raise the percentage of transplants from living donors in China up to 40 percent in the last few years.

This number is up from 15 percent in 2006. Despite this, two-thirds of all organs harvested for transplant in China come from executed criminals.
"Executed prisoners are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants," said Vice Minister Huang Jiefu.
China is trying to move away from the use of executed prisoners and curb illegal trafficking by developing new sources for organ transplants.

A voluntary donation scheme is in the works, but may prove very difficult to implement due to China’s cultural bias against removing organs after death.
While change is in the works, organ trafficking remains a dark and grisly aspect of black market operations.

Modern Day Technology Slaves

A dozen labour activists throw paper money in front of paper figures representing Chinese employees of Foxconn Technology Group recently died in China outside the Foxconn office in Hong Kong Tuesday.

Upon reading the 8th highest-profile death related to iPhone last July, it stirred my interest to follow Foxconn news.

Sun Danyong, 25, jumped to his death after being interrogated over a missing iPhone prototype. 
Sun was responsible for sending the device to U.S.-based Apple Inc.
Local police said they were taking the case seriously and had sent a team to look into the death.

About a dozen labour activists protested at Foxconn offices in Hong Kong.
They held signs that said, "Foxconn lacks a conscience" and "Suicide is no accident."
The protesters from the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions burned cardboard cutouts resembling iPhones.

 

The latest death, the 10th suicide, at technology firm Foxconn in Shenzhen was Nan Gang, a 21-year-old man, working in the logistic department, from Hubei province.
He jumped from the top of a 4-storey factory building in Foxconn's industrial complex in Longhua township at 4.37 am on Friday after finishing the night shift at 4am.
A migrant from central Hubei province, he landed on his head and died at the scene.

Beginning this year, Rong Bo, leapt off a building and killed himself on Jan. 8 at a Foxconn plant.
Another, Li Hai, 19, after working at the plant for only 42 days, died after jumping off the company's dormitory building.

Recent suicides included a 24-year-old male factory worker surnamed Lu.
He jumped from a building inside the factory.

A girl, aged 16, was found dead on her dormitory bed.

6 men and 2 women had died.
Another 2 female employees were seriously injured.

The dead were all young migrant workers, 16 to 27 years of age, among the millions who leave the poor hinterlands of China for the boom towns of the south and east coastal areas.
They yearned work and high wages.

Family of Yan Li, a 27-year-old engineer, claimed that Yan Li was overwork.
The claim was denied by the company.
The family alleged that Yan Li, had been working the night shift for more than a month straight.
Sometimes working 24 hours non-stop.
If what the family said is true, then it could be the 11th life taken.

He died suddenly at his home early on May 27.
But Taiwan contract electronics maker Hon Hai Precision Industry, the Foxconn owner said, it did not see the death as work-related after reviewing the matter.
There's no speculation to support the statement the specific cause of death.

The jumping incidents at Foxconn Technology Group, which makes iPhones and iPads, is the world's largest contract maker of electronics, such as the iPod, Dell computers and Nokia phones, show signs of the Werther effect - a series of copycat suicides after a widely publicised case - with the number of suicides increasing proportionally to the coverage.

It was said that employees, burdened with stress and psychological problems, simply copied deaths widely covered by the media.

A Chinese worker takes a closer look at a circuit board at Taiwanese owned Foxconn factory in Shenzhen

Foxconn is a big company with its own campus.
The company is as large as a medium-sized city.

It runs massive manufacturing complexes where workers churn out products for the world's leading computer and phone companies in round-the-clock shifts.
It had a high turnover, with nearly half the staff quitting every year.

Out of the 800,000 Foxconn employees in China, 420,000 are based in Shenzhen, where they work different shifts.
These employees live in a massive factory complex.
They share a dorm with staff doing other shifts, as they belong to different units.

Scores of workers is managed by only a supervisor.
He may not be able to name all his subordinates, let alone be aware of their mental states.
Most are under 30 and life in the company's factories can be lonely.
They need the feeling of a family to handle the severe working pressure. 

The company cannot make these young people be just money-making machines.

Under this work mode, whenever an employee has difficulties, mental problems or is considering suicide, he or she cannot get effective help from their co-workers.

Adjust in the management is needed to ensure its employees have a social support network.
It also has to find a way to identify potential suicides, as well as those with psychological problems, in order to take effective measures to help them.

The number of suicide deaths have raised more questions about working conditions at Foxconn's massive complex.
Labour activists alleged it has a long history of mistreatment of workers.

Campaign group China Labour Watch called for an overhaul of conditions for Foxconn's production line workers, after investigation prompted by previous deaths.

The string of suicides back up their long-standing allegations that workers toil in terrible conditions.
They claim shifts are long.
It recorded working days up to 12 hours.
Production line employees sometimes going for weeks without a  day off.
The assembly line moves too fast.
Managers enforce military-style discipline on the work force.

Workers, total about 300,000, are pushed too hard.
They toiled under tremendous pressure, facing harsh discipline for making mistakes - Quoting workers in a computer assembly department as saying, many attributed recent deaths to the stress they are all under.

They are extremely tired, with tremendous pressure.