The obesity epidemic ('Mainland's 60 million obese reveal a growing problem', October 13) is blamed on poor consumer knowledge and not the tantalising, manipulative promotion of unhealthy products such as baby milk formula, fats, sugars and other junk passed off as 'food' by corporations like Nestle, under the aegis of the World Trade Organisation.
A Nestle vice-president meanwhile suggests that Washington and Brussels tell Boeing and Airbus 'to cool it' and 'not allow their squabbles to jeopardise what could and should be a brilliant 21st century for the world, and especially for Asia' ('Give China a greater say', October 12). Edith Terry ('Career in politics? Get real', October 13) addressed the blatant hand-in-pocket links between politicians, big business and organised crime in Japan (and, by allusion, in Hong Kong).
Turning the page we read of the privatisation of state industries to reduce the Philippines' chaotic debt, blocked by senators' refusal to pass legislation hostile to big business ('Arroyo set to cull the fat cows'). The money saved (for whom?) in a country where one in three live in poverty would be worth it.
For a perspective closer to home, see J. Schofield's letter 'Pork barrel' (October 12). Meanwhile, Michael Scott's letter (October 13) about the plundering of New Zealand's public sector assets foretells Hong Kong's direction. He could also have mentioned the privatisation fest that asset-stripped the British public sector in the 1990s and how business interests now drive the political agenda in the UK, as they do in America and Hong Kong. RTHK Radio 3 broadcasts government messages on behalf of the recording industry and we tsk! that more people than ever earn less than $4,000 a month.
Large commercial interests are now so adept at driving global agendas that the semblance of democracy is in tatters while it is ever more voiciferously defended. Corporations are bankrolling politicians and governments to do their bidding. And as Russia - and, I daresay, most other 'democracies' - illustrate, organised crime is competing aggressively in this game. So let's stop blaming the poor for their fate, misery and ill-health.
RICHARD FIELDING, department of community medicine, University of Hong Kong