Christmas Eve’s correspondents discuss RAF Leuchars’ commercial potential, the threat to Iraqi Christians, NHS ward standards and wind power’s effectiveness.
Snow-free RAF Leuchars ideal for civil flights Sir,-It has to be noted that RAF Leuchars has managed to stay open during this seasonal weather.
Does it not, therefore, make sense to use the base as a civilian destination?
The base could probably take jumbo jets and could have taken the strain off struggling Heathrow.
Perhaps our political masters will look at using a facility that actually works instead of mothballing it in the event of closure.
Sandy Alston.40 Buchanan Gardens,St Andrews.
Tolerance must follow EU money
Sir,-This Christmas Eve is a good time to remember the plight of the embattled Christians of Iraq who live under daily threat of violence and death.
The Iraqi Christian community is one of the oldest in the world, with a tradition stretching back almost to the time of Jesus.
I met recently two leaders of the Syrian Catholic Church of Iraq, Archbishop Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka of Baghdad and Monsignor Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul.
They told me that before the fall of Saddam, Iraqi Christians numbered up to one million but their subsequent victimisation in majority-Muslim Iraq has led countless thousands to flee abroad.
In recent years, senior Christian clerics have been kidnapped and, in some cases, murdered. In November, a bomb attack on a church in Baghdad left 58 worshippers dead. A group affiliated to al-Qaida, has stated that Christians are a “legitimate target”.
Archbishop Matoka says that this amounts to effective ethnic cleansing and that the Christian community is facing extinction.
In the past decade, the EU has invested over one billion euros in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The new government of Iraq should take note that EU taxpayers will not willingly continue to contribute cash to Iraq at a time of great financial austerity, if the persecution of Christian and other minorities is allowed to go on unchecked.
Struan Stevenson MEP.European Parliament,Rue Wiertz,Brussels.
Buck stops with managers
Sir,-The latest health scare from Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, (December 21) is little short of criminal negligence.
Every manager within the complex should operate from the standpoint that the health of the patient is fundamental to the successful outcome of any medical treatment.
To that end, it should be incumbent on each and every manager to ensure that every medical malpractice, from basic cleanliness to surgery, is dealt with to the satisfaction of hospital standards.
Slipshod habits develop where lax management allows ward discipline to deteriorate to the point where expediency outweighs that which is best for the patient.
In other words, whether, due to lack of staff or even commitment, healthworkers appear to perform their duties not for the benefit of the patients but to a satisfaction determined by themselves.
In no way am I an expert in hospital procedures but, as this problem is ongoing with no satisfactory solution in sight, it is only right that the management and unions should be first in the firing line.
Too much familiarity, too much consideration of workers’ rights and not enough consideration of patients’ rights highlight a weak management structure.
Robert Anderson.Kirkton,Arbroath.
Can we afford wind subsidies?
Sir,-Harry Lawrie (December 20) is absolutely correct to congratulate the photographers involved in taking the excellent photographs which appeared in The Courier’s supplement, Winter Collection, and, as he so points out, without a wind turbine in sight.
He is also correct to state that Scotland is “blessed by natural beauty.”
However, given the Scottish Government’s energy policy promoting wind turbines and with a target of 80% to be met from renewables by 2020, for how much longer will we be able to enjoy that beauty.
The answer to date would seem to be very little. For at 4pm on the very same day that Mr Lawrie’s letter appeared, I checked out the figures given on the National Grid’s “real time” website for the previous 24 hours and they were as follows gas was providing 35.9% of UK electricity consumption, coal 43.3% and nuclear 17.1%, adding up to 96.3%.
Windpower during the same period only managed to supply approximately 0.2%.
During the many months I have accessed this site, such figures are very much the norm, with the highest percentage observed having been around the 4.6% mark.
Wind-powered generation is a mature industry and such derisory figures only go to show what a lame duck it truly is.
Neil McKinnon.Tulchan Garden,Glenalmond,Perth.
Belief system based on fear
Sir,-Sylvia Brown (December 21) accuses me of being intolerant of Christians. This is incorrect.
I believe that Christians have the same rights as Scientologists, Moonies, 9/11 truthers or anyone else to believe whatever they wish.
What they don’t have the right to do is foist their absurd beliefs on the unwilling. This includes the reprehensible act of Christians telling lies and frightening children by saying they are in for an eternity of torture if they don’t believe in the Christian God.
Alan Hinnrichs.2 Gillespie Terrace,Dundee.
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