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SCMP Reporter

Q Do we need pet parks?

I am not a pet lover and I don't have a need for a pet park. But whether I need one or not, I see pets on the streets, on the upper podium of the private estate where I live, around the school building where I teach. I see droppings and can  detect the foul smell left most mornings and evenings.

So what can we do but say 'hi' to these dog owners, secretly hoping that  they will take their dogs farther away from where we work and live.

I curse them when I and my children are playing ball or badminton  as our balls or shuttlecocks may fall on where these pets just urinated or made their droppings.

There is really nothing we can do about it.

How nice it would be if there was somewhere big where dog owners could take their dogs for a stroll and  urinate. It would not only do them good, it would improve the hygiene of where we live and work.

We must not be miserly and think only of the money we  will pay  to build the parks, or the land that can be used for other more useful purposes.

We must understand that money spent on building pet parks is actually doing us good. We will have a cleaner environment  for ourselves because if the pet parks are easily accessible, beautiful and user-friendly enough, pet owners will love to take their pets there to meet other pets too.

Their pets will no longer be using our places as their toilet. Pet lovers will have no excuse for their selfish behaviour of letting their dogs  foul  the street or  private housing estate. The cleaning-up will be a lot easier and the cost of cleaning will be much lower as the problem is concentrated in one place instead of  being spread around.

There will be fewer conflicts among tenants living in the same building. The play area will really  belong to the children and there will be less chance  of them getting allergies from the hair of the animals.

Zachary Ng Kwok-keung, Mei Foo

On other matters...

Your ideologically-driven and biased coverage of breast screening on Monday, City section,  however well-meaning, has done an enormous disservice to women's health and deserves an evidence-based riposte.

First, there is continuing controversy over the effectiveness of mammographic screening in the west - facts that were not presented in your extensive coverage despite my repeated reference during two separate interviews with your reporters.

Second, there are no good data about the efficacy of mammography in Chinese women, whose risk is half that of Caucasians' with a different epidemiologic profile.

Third, a large clinical trial on breast self-examination among  women in Shanghai has definitively concluded that it does not save lives.

Despite this lack of evidence, there have been widespread and unqualified recommendations, many from those with vested interests, for whole-population screening, and aggressive promotion of mammographic examination in Chinese women such as the current misguided 'Pink Revolution'. The present situation is the result of a misappropriation of scientific logic to the highly emotive issue of breast cancer. The simple truth is the biology of breast cancer does not easily permit prevention through screening, unlike pap smears for cervical cancer.

As with every medical intervention, screening carries side effects. Our research has shown that in healthy women at average risk for the disease, at least 86 and as many as 98 out of 100 positive screens (i.e. abnormal result on mammography) will be false positives, which necessarily entail invasive, risky confirmatory procedures such as a fine needle aspiration or even open biopsy.

For women at high risk of the disease (e.g. strong family history, previous personal history of breast lumps), careful individual clinical assessment should guide the need for and frequency of mammographic screening.

Resources that may be allocated for a comprehensive population screening programme would be better directed at improving treatment for cancer patients, along with case-finding in targeted high-risk groups where mammography may be a truly beneficial, and necessary, intervention.

Dr Gabriel M Leung, University of Hong Kong School of Public Health

As a parent of children in ESF schools I am shocked and worried to read in your articles yesterday  how the executive of ESF is treating its staff over this remuneration cut.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that the figures the ESF keeps pushing are falsifying the situation because it keeps including in the 'average' those  long-serving teachers on expatriate-style contracts.

They are all nearing retirement age and will leave in the coming years, resulting in further savings for the ESF (which does not even need to save money as it is a flourishing organisation).

The teachers' announcement is more pertinent because it provides the areas of concern for all parents.

The figures we should worry about are those that reveal the package for new teachers. The NET teachers leave in droves as their package is unattractive.

The ESF teachers will also leave and it appears that four if not five heads have already resigned.  This new package is clearly unfeasible. The high turnover of staff a pay cut of this severity will induce will alter and damage the nature of the ESF schools where continuity and dedication have been such plusses.

Studies all over the world indicate that a turnover of only 10 per cent reveals inadequate remuneration. The ESF teachers' announcement draws attention to the aspects of school life parents value - a pastoral system, a range of activities and outings and enormous goodwill from staff - all given for no extra pay, whereas several other international schools pay staff to do extracurricular activities.

If the pay cut is ratified today, teachers are bound to withdraw their goodwill.

Let's have some responsible journalism here with an announcement of Ms Du Quesnay's package. As her stance rests on not believing in decent remuneration, it is a very important requirement and will expose the hypocrisy and lack of long-term vision at the centre of this dispute.

S. Holgate, Braemar Hill

Your report 'Answering call of the wild' yesterday  begs the question why the government, in this case the Office of the Telecommunications Authority, seems to be more concerned with the profitability of operators, rather than the territory-wide service provided to its citizens.

One has to presume that an operator can achieve a licence without too much of an obligation and is free to choose the density and area of coverage wherever the commercial return is highest.

The excuse of environmental concerns and hilly countryside is hardly substantiated, given the available technology. Mobile phones  work in parts of the world with rather serious mountains, not just  hills like we have in Hong Kong.Perhaps it is time  the government updated the requirements in the interest of its citizens to provide 21st century services.

This would refer not only to the insufficient mobile phone network coverage, but also to radio reception, the still not available GPS road guidance system and the lack of, readily available via satellite,  quality television broadcasting.

Name and address supplied

One thing illogical about Sudoku problems is the publication of solutions the following day. You either get it right or you don't finish and nothing is going to explain to you where and at what stage you went wrong.

Name and Address supplied



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