'China a developing nation'

CHINA'S government said on Tuesday it still is a developing country despite becoming the second-largest economy, reflecting its reluctance to take on new obligations on climate change and other issues.

Beijing needs to improve life for millions of impoverished Chinese, said a Commerce Ministry spokesman, Yao Jian. It was the government's first public reaction to news on Monday that China passed Japan in economic output in the April-to-June quarter, confirming its arrival as a global commercial power.

'China is a developing country,' Mr Yao said. 'The quality of China's economic development still needs to be raised. It needs more effort to improve economic quality and people's lives'.

Rapid growth has boosted the communist government's political and economic influence abroad. But Beijing has resisted adopting binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions or making commitments in other areas such as easing controversial currency controls or guaranteeing foreign suppliers equal treatment in government purchasing.

China overtook Japan after Tokyo on Monday reported quarterly gross domestic product of US$1.286 trillion (S$1.74 trillion), behind China's US$1.335 trillion reported earlier. With a population of 1.3 billion, China ranks among the poorest countries per person, with an average income of US$3,600 last year, compared with Japan's US$37,800.

China's government is in the midst of a marathon effort to spread prosperity from its thriving eastern cities to the poor countryside and west. Communist leaders are trying to diffuse tensions over a huge wealth gap between an elite who have benefited most from three decades of reform and the poor majority.

Global warming cuts rice crops

EVEN modest rises in global temperatures will drive down rice production in Asia, the world's biggest grower of the cereal grain that millions of poor people depend on as a staple food, a study published on Monday warned.

Researchers from the United States, the Philippines and the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) looked at the impact of rising daily minimum and maximum temperatures on irrigated rice production between 1994-1999 in 227 fields in China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. They found that the main culprit in cutting rice yields was higher daily minimum temperatures.

'As the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop,' said Jarrod Welch of the University of California, San Diego, and lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

'Up to a point, higher daytime temperatures can increase rice yield but future yield losses caused by higher night-time temperatures will likely outweigh any such gains because temperatures are rising faster at night,' Mr Welch said. Rising temperatures in the past 25 years have already cut rice yields at several key growing locations by 10-20 per cent. The loss in production is expected to get worse as temperatures rise further towards the middle of the century, said Mr Welch.

'If daytime temperatures get too high, they also start to restrict rice yields, causing an additional loss in production,' he said. Rice is a key global crop, eaten by around three billion people a day. In Asia, it is a staple food to some 600 million people who are among the world's one billion poorest inhabitants, the study and FAO data show.

A decline in rice production will mean more people will slip into poverty and hunger, the authors of the study warned. 'If we cannot change our rice production methods or develop new rice strains that can withstand higher temperatures, there will be a loss in rice production over the next few decades as days and nights get hotter,' said Mr Welch.

Big waistlines carry death risk

THE bigger a person's waistline, the more likely they are to die of any cause, regardless of whether they are overweight or not, a study published on Monday says.

Researchers at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta looked at the association between the waistlines of 48,500 men and 56,343 women aged 50 years and older, and death from any illness.

After adjusting for body mass index and other risk factors, the researchers found that men and women with very large waists - 120 cm (47 inches) or greater in men, and 110 cm (42 inches) or more in women - were around twice as likely to die of any cause as people with smaller waists. The risk of dying was greater regardless of whether a man or woman was normal weight, overweight or obese, found the study published in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study also found that men and women with very large waists were 'more likely than those with smaller waists to be less educated, to have a high BMI (body mass index), to be physically inactive, to be former smokers, and to have a history of cardiovascular disease, cancer or respiratory disease.' Respiratory disease was the most likely cause of death among the very large-girthed, followed by cardiovascular disease and cancer, the study said.

Previous studies have associated large waistlines with heart disease, inflammatory illness, insulin resistance, high blood cholesterol and type two diabetes.

The link between waist circumference and mortality from a host of illnesses 'may be because waist circumference is strongly correlated with fat tissue in the viscera - surrounding the organs in the abdomen - which is thought to be more dangerous than fat tissue under the skin,' the study said. 'Our results suggest that, regardless of weight, avoiding gains in waist circumference may reduce the risk of premature mortality,' the authors of the study said.

Critical to have foreigners

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong has again called on Singaporeans to welcome foreign talent with 'an open heart', and reiterated the need for such an inflow, without whom he said the Singapore economy and society would lose it vibrancy.

Acknowledging Singaporeans' concerns about taking in foreign workers and immigrants, which he said are 'valid' and must be addressed, PM Lee assured them that citizens will always come first.

While stressing the critical need to reinforce the Singaporean team with talent and numbers from abroad, he said the Government will control the inflow, 'to ensure that it is not too fast, and not too large.'

'We will only bring in people who can contribute to Singapore, and work harder to integrate them into our society. And we will make clear that citizens come first. After all, we are doing this for the sake of Singaporeans,' said PM Lee in his televised National Day message on Sunday evening, the eve of Singapore's 45th birthday.

He said foreigners also help make up the shortage of Singaporean workers and the shortfall of babies in the population.

'Without an inflow, over time our economy and society will lose vibrancy, our citizens will enjoy fewer opportunities, and our shining red dot will grow dimmer,' he said. 'We cannot do without a proportion of foreign workers, or a continuing flow of PRs and new citizens.

'Let us welcome them with an open heart, help them to fit in and encourage those who will become citizens to strike roots here. If we do this well, by the next generation, their children will be native Singaporeans.

'Remember, we ourselves are descendants of immigrants too. With new arrivals living and working harmoniously with those born here, we will keep Singapore dynamic, cosmopolitan, and successful.'

Good looks can kill chances

BEAUTY has an ugly side when it comes to job applications: it prevents attractive women from even being considered for some positions, according to a study published on Friday.

Researchers found that good-looking women were unlikely to be hired when they applied for jobs considered masculine - like construction supervisor, prison guard, car salesperson or tow truck driver - the study published in the Journal of Social Psychology says.

Good-looking women did, however, have an advantage over their less attractive female counterparts in jobs deemed feminine. Men, on the other hand, face no such beauty-barrier: good-looking men always have an advantage over less good-looking men seeking work, regardless of whether the job they are after is a seen as masculine or feminine.

The study researchers, led by Stefanie Johnson, a management professor at the University of Colorado's Denver Business School, asked participants to pair jobs ranging from lingerie salesperson to tow truck driver with photos of applicants they considered suitable for the job. They had a stack of 55 male and 55 female photos, and the list of jobs.

In job categories like director of security, hardware salesperson, prison guard and tow truck driver, attractive women were completely overlooked, even though appearance was considered unimportant for the job. Even in jobs where appearance was considered important - such as car salesperson - attractive women were ignored. Instead, they were slotted into positions like receptionist or secretary.

In a second study, participants were also given the resumes of the job applicants. But that changed nothing: the good-looking women were still ignored for the manly jobs. The study's authors chided employers who let stereotypes and physical appearance influence hiring decisions, urging them to hire on merit.

But even though attractive women tend to miss out on some job opportunities, overall, it's good to be good-looking, said Johnson. When they do get hired, beautiful people tend to get higher salaries, better performance evaluations, are more likely to gain admission to university, get better voter ratings when running for public office and more favourable judgments in trials, she said.

Cold cuts could cause cancer

Red meat is being raked over the coals again.

Already linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, including cancer of the pancreas, red meat was found by a team of US researchers to be a possible cause of bladder cancer, a study published in the journal Cancer said.

For those who can't do without their bacon-cheeseburger, some good news: scientists found no associations between beef, bacon, hamburger, sausage or steak and bladder cancer.

But they did observe a "positive nonlinear association for red meat cold cuts" and bladder cancer, they said.

The culprits in the cold cuts are nitrates and nitrites which are added to meat when it is processed to preserve and enhance colour and flavour.

"Nitrate and nitrite are precursors to N-nitroso compounds (NOCs), which induce tumours in many organs, including the bladder, in multiple animal species," the study says.

For the study, scientists assessed the intake of nitrates, nitrites and other components found in red meat, in some 300,00 men and women aged 50-71 year, in eight US states, and its relation to cancer.

The study participants were followed up for up to eight years. During that time, 854 were diagnosed with cancer of the bladder.

The cientists found that people whose diets were high in nitrites from all sources, not just meats, and people who got a lot of nitrates in their diets from processed meats, like cold cuts, had a 28 to 29 per cent greater chance of developing bladder cancer than those who consumed the lowest amount of either compound.

The scientists also found that people who ate the most red meat were younger, less educated, less physically active, and had lower dietary intake of fruits, vegetable, and vitamins C and E than those consuming the least red meat.

The researchers, led by Dr Amanda Cross of the National Cancer Institute, also found that the biggest carnivores among us were more likely to be non-Hispanic white, current smokers, to have a higher BMI, and to consume more beverages and total energy daily.

Seven hours the magic number for sleep

People who sleep more or fewer than seven hours a day, including naps, are increasing their risk for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, a study published Sunday shows.

Sleeping fewer than five hours a day, including naps, more than doubles the risk of being diagnosed with angina, coronary heart disease, heart attack or stroke, the study conducted by researchers at West Virginia University's (WVU) faculty of medicine and published in the journal "Sleep" says.

And sleeping more than seven hours also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, it says.

Study participants who said they slept nine hours or longer a day were one-and-a-half times more likely than seven-hour sleepers to develop cardiovascular disease, the study found.

The most at-risk group was adults under 60 years of age who slept five hours or fewer a night. They increased their risk of developing cardiovascular disease more than threefold compared to people who sleep seven hours.

Women who skimped on sleep, getting five hours or fewer a day, including naps, were more than two-and-a-half times as likely to develop cardiovascular disease.

Short sleep duration was associated with angina, while both sleeping too little and sleeping too much were associated with heart attack and stroke, the study says.

A separate study, also published in "Sleep", showed that an occasional long lie-in can be beneficial for those who can't avoid getting too little sleep.

In that study, David Dinges, who heads the sleep and chronobiology unit at the University of Pennsylvania school of medicine, found that 142 adults whose sleep was severely restricted for five days - as it is for many people during the work week - had slower reaction times and more trouble focusing.

But after a night of recovery sleep, the sleep-deprived study participants' alertness improved significantly, and the greatest improvements were seen in those who were allowed to spend 10 hours in bed after a week with just four hours' sleep a night.

"An additional hour or two of sleep in the morning after a period of chronic partial sleep loss has genuine benefits for continued recovery of behavioral alertness," Dinges said.

In the study about sleep and cardiovascular disease, researchers led by Anoop Shankar, associate professor at WVU's department of community medicine, analyzed data gathered in a national US study in 2005 on more than 30,000 adults.

The results were adjusted for age, sex, race, whether the person smoked or drank, whether they were fat or slim, and whether they were active or a couch potato.

And even when study participants with diabetes, high blood pressure or depression were excluded from the analysis, the strong association between too much or too little sleep and cardiovascular disease remained.

The authors of the WVU study were unable to determine the causal relationship between how long a person sleeps and cardiovascular disease.

But they pointed out that sleep duration affects endocrine and metabolic functions, and sleep deprivation can lead to impaired glucose tolerance, reduced insulin sensitivity and elevated blood pressure, all of which increase the risk of hardening the arteries.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that most adults get about seven to eight hours of sleep each night.

Shankar suggested that doctors screen for changes in sleep duration when assessing patients' risk for cardiovascluar disease, and that public health initiatives consider including a focus on improving sleep quality and quantity.

"Sleep" is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.