Purified Air at Zhongnanhai Sparks Controversy

A major Chinese manufacturing company of air purifying equipment inadvertently revealed in an online advertisement that China’s ruling communist party officials are treated to fresh, clean air at their luxury compound of Zhongnanhai. Meanwhile the rest of Beijing citizens are treated to misleading daily air quality reports.

Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and for years Chinese have asked themselves why the Chinese communist party (CCP) leaders haven’t done something to improve Beijing’s air quality–don’t they have to breathe the same dirty air? It turns out, they don’t.

According to an ad posted by Changsha based air purifier company Yuanda Group, it didn’t take much effort to convince the CCP leaders to install over 200 of their US$2,000-per-unit air purifiers at Zhongnanhai. They first installed one unit in the meeting room of the Politburo Standing Committee. Not long after, the company received the order, it said.

“From living quarters and meeting rooms to swimming pools and fitness centers, everywhere at Zhongnanhai air purifiers have been installed,” Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post quoted from Yuanda’s website.

“When cleaning the air purifier, after seeing the dirty ink-like water, Yuanda air purifier soon became the chosen air purifier of national leaders,” the website said.

It also assured the public that “providing clean and healthy air for the national leaders is of great benefit to the people.”

Although the ad has been removed, the commotion it stirred up has spread through Chinese cyberspace and beyond.

A Nov. 4 New York Times article titled “The Privileges of China’s Elite Include Purified Air” said, according to Yuanda Group’s vice-president Zhang Zhong, the company installed over 200 air-purifiers in the Great Hall of the People, Hu Jintao’s office, and offices and homes of high ranking CCP officials.

The article drew a rebuke from the CCP’s mouthpiece Global Times on Nov. 7 saying, “A normal government purchase suddenly turns into privileges for the Chinese elite under the pen of an American correspondent who lacks in knowledge.”

The Beijing Evening News also came to the Party’s defense in a Nov. 8 article: “The New York Times links air quality to special privileges most hated by Chinese people, shows the reporter’s political sensitivity… But only citing the Yuanda website promotion about air purifiers in the report shows that the American reporter lacks professionalism.”

But the Chinese general public seems to have a different view. They wrote sarcastic, and sometimes scathing, messages on Sina Weibo, China’s most popular micro-blog.

One post said: “I think this is very believable. I always thought air quality in Beijing is so bad, those in Zhongnanhai must have taken some measures so they can breathe clean air, otherwise they would have moved by now. Whether it was the Yuanda company or not, I believe the special clean air [story] is definitely true.”

Another post said: “Everyone at CCP central needs to install a human conscience purifier. If they could purifier away a pot-full of black water from their soul, all of China’s problems would be solved.”

Another said: “It’s better the citizens don’t know, so they won’t be mentally polluted. It’s like with food safety that’s kept secret from people.”

Yuanda did not verify the installation of air purifiers in the offices and homes of CCP leaders, but the company spokesperson replied during an interview with Deutsche Presse, “Our customers do include many government agencies.”

Recently, Beijing’s air has been highly contaminated by brown smog. Air quality detector instruments at the U.S. embassy in Beijing have consistently displayed dangerous levels. Many well-known Chinese personalities post the air quality index published by the U.S. embassy on their Weibo blogs, and this value is much higher than the one published by the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, according to a Beijing Morning News report on Nov. 1.

For example, on Oct. 31, the U.S. embassy air quality index was 307, and the PM 2.5 (a particle matter size standard) was 257 for particles less than 0.25 micrometers in diameter.

But the index announced by the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau was only 132.

According to the PM 2.5 standard, 201-300 is considered very unhealthy, and above 300 is considered hazardous.

On Nov. 8, the U.S. embassy published an article on its official microblog, explaining how the American air quality index is measured.

The U.S. embassy uses the PM 2.5 standard of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which measures the presence of particles that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameters. It said these particles are the most dangerous for the human body.

The Chinese regime, however, only publishes data for particles greater than 10 micrometers in diameter.

Responding to questions about the discrepancy between the two air quality indexes, She Shaozhong, vice-director of Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau said, they don’t care what other countries’ embassies do.

According to documents leaked by Wikileaks, the air quality measurements published by the U.S. embassy are being considered as interfering with China’s internal affairs. An official from the CCP’s Foreign Affairs Office has already requested that the U.S. stop releasing the data.

Honeywell True HEPA Air Filter Review

Raise your hand if you’re skeptical about Hepa filters? Since you can’t see what I’m doing, I’m literally raising my hand, or use to.  That is until I had the chance to test out Honeywell’s True HEPA Compact Tower air purifier.

In terms of the gadgets we review it’s relatively unremarkable.  It’s body is crafted from plastic, there is a dial on the top to control 3 fans speeds and the back flap opens up allowing you to change out the HEPA filters, which needs to happen once a year.  Honeywell includes a carbon filter in the box that is designed to filter out odors and smells.  Since my bedroom has a scented oil therapy thingee – the chicks dig it – I opted to not use this.

So why am I now a card carrying HEPA air filter fan?  Before I tested out Honeywell’s True HEPA air filter I vacuumed my room once a week.  And every week I collected a fair amount of dust.  Now, keep in mind that I leaving my windows closed 90% of the year, if not more.  Crazy, I know, but since I have a fairly strong allergy to mold I figure better to play it safe  than not (plus I live in Santa Monica and it doesn’t get above 75 degrees even during the summer).  After installing Honeywell’s True HEPA air filter and letting it run for a week’s time I could notice not only a reduction in dust on my nightstands and the edge of my LED TV, but even in the vacuum after completing a solid sweep.  But it gets better than that.  I also noticed that I now wake up feeling far less congested, which leads me to the only logical conclusion; the Honeywell Hepa filter actually does work to improve the air quality of a room.

In terms of effectiveness, my room is about 15×15 at the most and that doesn’t include my bathroom or closets.  Nonetheless, it’s designed to work in room’s up to 300 sq feet, but since I can only attest to my room and my experience I can stay it’s effective.  Throughout my testing I kept the fan at 1, which is the lowest setting, though on certain days, say after I had the windows open, I’d crank it to the highest setting, 3, and let it filter out all the toxins that had been collected in my room’s air.  However, at this setting the fan can be a bit intrusive, especially if you watch TV or listen to music close by, but the lowest setting didn’t impede upon my movie watching experience.

So what more can I say.  The Honeywell True HEPA  works.  It cleans the air, isn’t too loud and is easy to setup.  It’s not the coolest looking of Hepafilters, but it’s not the worst.

Culloden native a Christian writer, broadcaster

A debilitating case of black mold engulfed his house and threatened his family's health. A famous football coach falls from grace -- after he's written a book with him about winning. These would test the devotion of many a religious man, but not that of nationally recognized author and broadcaster Chris Fabry.

Fabry credits that faith to a moment as a college student when he said to himself, "If God is really who He says He is, maybe I need to do more than just show up in a tie on Sundays."

The Marshall University journalism school and Moody Bible Institute graduate now can be heard daily on the nationally syndicated radio show "Love Worth Finding." He received the 2008 "Talk Personality of the Year" Award from the National Religious Broadcasters. He has published more than 60 books since 1995, many of them fiction for younger readers.

"My parents took us to a little country church in Culloden," Fabry said of his early years. He went to Milton High School through 1979, working at WNST radio. In his senior year at Marshall, Fabry interned for then-news director Bos Johnson at WSAZ-TV. He married his wife, Andrea Kessell, in 1982, and then he realized he felt called to do something more than just report on city council for the 6 o'clock news.

The couple packed up and headed to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

"I spoke to my advisor at Moody, and I told him I didn't know my calling. He looked at my resume, and said, 'I see you've done radio, TV, writing -- don't you think God can use that?'

"Radio played a big part in my family's understanding of the Gospel. We were going to a church (from when I was born until I was 8 or 9) that taught that you could never know if you were really a Christian. You had to be baptized in order to become a believer, but after that, you didn't know whether or not you were OK because your actions could separate you from God. Curse at a driver ahead of you and you had lost your salvation. That kind of thing."

But it was listening to Theodore Epp on "Back to the Bible" (at that time aired on WCHS out of Charleston) that convinced his mother that "God's love was given to us in Jesus Christ," Fabry said.

Fabry started working in radio at Moody, and within a year was hosting "Open Line," a national call-in show, which he did for 12 years. Six years in radio in Chicago followed. Along the way, the couple had Erin, Megan, Shannon, Ryan, Kristen, Reagan, Kaitlyn, Colin, and Brandon. Five girls, four boys. They now range in age from 10 to 26.

He met author Jerry Jenkins at Moody, who became a mentor for his writing career.

"He said, 'If you really want to do this, I can help you, but it will be painful.' I didn't mind the hard work -- I had spent a series of years of reading everything in the 808 section of the library, so I was ready."

Jenkins wanted Chris to help with a series he was writing. Together with Dr. Tim LaHaye, Jenkins wrote the first five of the children's series "Left Behind: The Kids." Fabry went on to write the last 35.

In May 2008, he began "Chris Fabry Live!" and won the 2008 "Talk Personality of the Year" Award from the National Religious Broadcasters.

The biggest test of his faith also started in 2008. The family had moved to Colorado in 2000 so he could concentrate on writing. The home that was to be a haven became infected with black mold, and a series of botched repairs and clean-up jobs made the home unlivable and made the family sick.

"You're not supposed to have one Stachybotrys spore in your house," Fabry said. "In our bedroom, there was something like 260,000 airborne spores collected in the air sample."

It affected everyone's immune system, leaving the children chemically sensitive to perfumes, cleaning solutions and more. They were unable to go back to school. The family vacated the house and left everything behind, and euthanized their two beloved dogs, Pippen and Frodo, who could not recover from the mold issues.

Skipper discharged after fatality

To prevent captive animals from losing their natural behaviours, zoos are instituting enrichment programmes.

CAPTIVE animals in zoos and related institutions exist in an environment controlled by people. There are no zebras for lions to pounce on, no trees for elephants to wrestle with, and no rats scurrying through the undergrowth for our slithery friends to surprise.

In the captive environment, any opportunity to run, jump, pounce, climb, burrow, hunt and basically do what comes naturally to the animals, is afforded by humans. These are what zoo keepers call “enrichment programmes”.

Enrichment is all about making sure animals have the opportunities to remain stimulated, both mentally and physically. It can be as simple as filling the exhibit area with a variety of substrates and elevations for the animal to explore, to more complex measures such as providing puzzle feeders, scents and behavioural training.


Ronda Schwetz, deputy zoo director at Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin in the United States, has a special interest in primates. For her recent trip to Zoo Negara in Kuala Lumpur, Schwetz brought with her a large contraption.

“This is an orang utan enrichment device,” she says, spinning the holey white tube inside its plain metal frame. “It was a nightmare to carry through the airport!”

The object does not look like much but feed a few peanuts and raisins into the tube and you’ve got a peanut-dispensing machine for orang utans to tinker with.

So instead of sitting around on the same tree, the orang utan get to experience something novel and stimulating. The effort and cost to create such a device, which is perfect for keeping our intelligent (ape) cousins busy, is minimal.

Schwetz says her apes thoroughly enjoy sitting around and cogitating on the best tool – finger or twig? – for prying out the goodies.