Tag Archives: Governmental

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Man seeks job to pay granddaughter’s tuition

Yu Changyuan, 78, attends a job fair in Zhengzhou last Saturday for seeking a job to pay for his granddaughter's tuition. [Photo/zynews.com]

Yu Changyuan, 78, attends a job fair in Zhengzhou last Saturday for seeking a job to pay for his granddaughter’s tuition. [Photo/zynews.com]

A construction job fair was held in Zhengzhou last Saturday. The oldest job seeker was a 78-year-old man named Yu Changyuan. He is a retired senior engineer and wants to find a job with a 4,000-yuan (US$580) monthly salary, with the hopes of paying his granddaughter’s tuition.

According to Yu, he was a senior engineer in Henan Fifth Construction Group, and he wanted to find a management position at the construction job fair to pay for his granddaughter’s university tuition, as his son died last year. “Although I am old, I am still healthy and I can still work,” said Yu.

However, Yu could not find a proper position at the job fair, because most of the positions were at construction sites and no one wanted to hire a 78-year-old man.

This was not the first time Yu went to a job fair. Liu Kai, a worker at the job fair, said that Yu started to seek a job after the Lantern Festival, which fell on Feb. 11 this year. At first, he thought that Yu was there to help his kids to find a job. However, he was shocked when Yu asked him whether there was any position for himself. According to Liu, the old man has a lot of certifications and this is the third time he came to the job fair.

According to Yu, he was born in 1938 in Shanghai and graduated from the Shanghai Urban Construction Academy in 1960. Then he was assigned to work at the Architectural Design Institute of Henan Province. After three years, he was assigned to work in Henan Fifth Construction Group until his retirement. He had participated in the construction of many projects in Zhengzhou since the 1980’s.

After his retirement, he was hired by the Institute of Geodesy Photogrammetry and Cartography for 10 years. At 70, he was truly retired.

Yu had a son and a daughter. His daughter is a teacher in a middle school while his son used to work for Henan Rural Credit Cooperative. However, his son suffered from suffusion of blood on the brain last September and died three months after surgery for the ailment.

“He cried everyday over our son’s death,” said Yu’s wife.

“My granddaughter is a top student and she will go to college next year. We want to help her and share her mother’s burden after my son’s death,” said Yu Changyuan.

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East Asia • •

Wales to host the GE Maintenance and Repair facility for GE9X

The announcement, which follows the First Minister’s meeting with GE executives in Washington DC, is accompanied by £20m of GE investment, that includes £5m from the Welsh Government.

The maintenance and repair of the GE9X will safeguard over 400 jobs at GE Aviation Wales. This news comes in addition to the site’s 2016/2017 recruitment activity to support growth relative to its current engine programmes.

The new facility will provide the technical lead and support to GE9X partners across the globe and place Wales at the cutting edge of the latest and greatest jet engine technology.

The First Minister welcomed news that the Nantgarw facility will lead the company’s global ‘Entry into Service’ readiness programme, describing the move as hugely significant in securing the future of the Nantgarw facility for the next generation and ensuring the site is at the forefront of important technology applications.

He said:

“I am delighted Welsh Government is supporting this very significant investment in one of our flagship operations. GE Aviation Wales is the largest aircraft engine maintenance facilities in the world and today’s announcement ensures it will maintain its position as the global centre of excellence for wide bodied jet engines that will now also include GE’s latest engine, the GE9X.

“As an Anchor company, GE Aviation is of huge strategic importance to the Welsh economy with a world class reputation and extensive experience and capability. It’s tremendously good news that this investment will strengthen its long-term sustainability, preserve the scale of the facility and ensure its on-going competitiveness.

“The aviation MRO facility has been in Nantgarw for 77 years and only recently celebrated its 25th anniversary of GE ownership so it is great news that the 9X will ensure GE Aviation remains at the forefront of the engine repair and overhaul sector for many years to come.”

The First Minister added that when he was in the States last year he had discussions about GE Aviation Wales’ selection as the global technical lead on the GE9X as well as potential new recruitment.

GE Aviation Wales Managing Director La-Chun Lindsay said:

“This is a great day for Wales and particularly for our communities across the Valleys. We’ve won this great accolade because we worked together as one ‘Team GE Aviation Wales’ on solving our site’s biggest problems and challenges.  The key objectives now are for the site to sustain its cost competitiveness and to continue improving on customer delivery for both engine overhaul and component repair. I want all our customers to hear this great news and be delighted if their GE9X engines are coming to GE Aviation Wales for servicing.

“Over many years we’ve enjoyed a great relationship with the Welsh Government and their grant offer was also a key differentiator in ensuring Wales as the MRO shop and technical lead for the GE9X. We have a great history of support from our partners in the Welsh Government and at every stage of this process we have worked in lock step to secure the GE9X.

“More than 85% of our employees from the surrounding area and are thus firmly rooted in our local community. I’m so pleased that securing the GE9X means that future generations will have the chance to fulfil their dreams of working at GE Aviation Wales and will have the same fantastic opportunities that have existed throughout the site’s proud history.”

GE Aviation Wales has been selected based on its wealth of technical expertise and its track record of continuous improvement. By focusing on increased utilisation and productivity despite its 77 year old infrastructure, GE Aviation Wales is now cost competitive with several brand-new overhaul sites. The upshot of continued focus on increased utilisation and delivery is a projected increase in volume to the site enabling new recruitment.

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Welsh Government • •

Stoke and the ceramic industry

When I was first elected to the Commons I was Chairman of a large quoted industrial group of companies.  In our ownership was an important part of the UK’s ceramic tile industry. The Group owned Johnsons Tiles, and Maws. We manufactured wall and floor tile. Even then we had competitive problems with the rest of the EU. Italian gas was considerably cheaper than UK gas, I was told, giving the successful Italian  competitors an edge. In more recent years the extra costs of ever dearer energy has become a bigger problem for the UK ceramics industry, like other heavy energy using businesses.

It was also true then, and now, that there was one thing even more important to a successful ceramics company than affordable energy to fire the kilns.  A growing business needs great designers, great commercial artists, great marketing to put before the architects, the house specifiers, domestic consumers and  the design consultants styles, colours and finishes they want to buy. UK ceramics has numerous great names and brands from the past. Maws were famous for their Victorian encaustic tiles which graced many a home and grand public building. Wedgwood was perhaps the greatest potter of all time, with his long career of new glazes, shapes and textures, and his ability to recreate the  best of the past in a modern idiom. In the last century Clarice Cliff, Susie Cooper and others launched homeware ranges that excited the imagination and became classics in their turn.

When I worked with managers over how to extend and improve our tiling range, my first reaction was to fall back on the old pattern books which we still had amidst  the company’s intellectual property. All those Georgian, Victorian and early twentieth century homes might want modern  versions of the tiles the factories had made when the homes were first new. Some of the glazes, shapes and designs from the Victorian, Art Nouveau and Art deco periods were particularly fine. I also asked the business to contact design Colleges to see what was stirring and if they wanted to collaborate.

The UK industry needed to automate more of its plants, drive down kiln transit times, and get better at recycling and controlling heat use. Over the years since I left much of this has come to pass.

Today, in the wake of the Stoke by election, the government should ask itself what more can be done to encourage a larger and more vibrant ceramics industry in the Potteries. Emma Bridgewater has shown that a modern entrepreneur with design flair can still establish a decent business here. Moorcroft, Waterford Wedgwood, Wade and Steelite also show what can still be done. Government does need to address the issue of dear energy for this industry and others. It can also help establish the talent pool and the possible collaborations between our Commercial Design schools and the industries that need those skills.

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John Redwood MP • • •

‘Make some noise’ for safe, supportive HIV/AIDS care, says UN on Zero Discrimination Day

1 March 2017 – The United Nations agency leading the world’s HIV/AIDS response is urging everyone to ‘make some noise’ for zero discrimination in healthcare settings.

&#8220Healthcare settings should be safe and supportive environments. It is unacceptable that discrimination is inhibiting access to care today,&#8221 said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), in his message for Zero Discrimination Day.

&#8220Eliminating discrimination in health-care settings is critical, and we must demand that it become a reality,&#8221 Mr. Sidibé added.

The right to health is a fundamental human right that includes access to affordable, timely and quality health-care services for all, yet discrimination remains widespread in health-care settings, creating a serious barrier to access to HIV services.

Data from 50 countries from the People Living with HIV Stigma Index cited by UNAIDS show that one in eight people living with HIV report being denied health care.

Around 60 per cent of European Union/European Economic Area countries report that stigma and discrimination among health-care professionals remains a barrier to the provision of adequate HIV prevention services for men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs.

Each year on 1 March, the world marks Zero Discrimination Day &#8220to highlight how everyone can be part of the transformation and take a stand for a fair and just society,&#8221 according to the press release.

&#8220Everyone has the right to be treated with respect, to live free from discrimination, coercion and abuse,&#8221 said Mr. Sidibé.

&#8220Discrimination doesn’t just hurt individuals it hurts everyone, whereas welcoming and embracing diversity in all its forms brings benefits for all.&#8221

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UN – Top News Stories • • • •