An Egyptian man shows his ink-stained finger after voting at a polling station in Cairo on May 23, 2012. Egyptians went to polls on Wednesday morning to elect a new president after the fall of ex-President Hosni Mubarak last year.(/Nasser Nouri)by Li Laifang, Shaimaa Talat, Tian DongdongCAIRO, May 23 () -- Egyptians went to the polls on Wednesday to elect their president in a free and fervent manner after the fall of ex-President Hosni Mubarak last year.The polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) across the country under tight security of police and troops. Helicopters hovered above Cairo, about 50 million people are eligible to cast their votes on Wednesday and Thursday.Some people flocked to polling stations two hours before the polling stations opened. The scene was rarely seen over the past decades due to fraud allegations in previous polls during the Mubarak age.Ahmed Fatah, a middle-aged Muslim who came to a polling station at 6:30 a.m., told that he held a high expectation of the election."I hope the new president can restore peace and stability in our life. Our economy has suffered from continuous chaos and violence, we want the new president to revive our economy, make our life easier and bring back the good reputation and great influence Egypt used to have," said Fatah.In Maadi Secondary School polling station, which was specially for women voters, a very long queue waited outside at noon.In a voting room, representatives for Shafiq, Sabahy, Morsi, Fotouh, and Abdallah al-Ashaal sat in a row to observe the process, with judge Haidy Fadaly. The polling station was in charge of 17, 000 voters in total."Everything is ok inside the committee, and I noticed no violations either in or outside the committee," Soraya Mohamed , 42 ,told .Nermin Nabil, 34, a Christian, said she voted for Moussa, considering him not from the former government's remnants."I will vote for Moussa, I trust him and his experience, and I don't trust the Islamists, because in fact they don't work for promoting Islam as they claim, but use Islam as a tool to promote themselves and their interests," Nabil said.Supporting another trend, Ghada Abbas, 35, said she voted for Hamdeen Sabahy because he is "Nasserist" and "moderate".Outside the polling station, three young men were holding pictures of the dead during the turmoil, in order to remind people not to forget the past. Troops tried to persuade them to leave, but failed."Remember those martyrs and don't vote for the former regime remnants," read a banner.Presidential candidate Amr Moussa, who voted on Wednesday morning in Cairo, said he would accept the results of the polls as long as there was no fraud. He said Egypt needs a capable statesman to run the country over the critical period.The People's Assembly Speaker Saad el-Katatni, who cast his vote in a polling station, said the lower house of parliament will cooperate with the new president, official MENA news agency reported."We will all help the next president and cooperate with him," he was quoted as saying. The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Katatni is a member, nominated its Freedom and Justice Party chairman Mohmed Morsi as presidential candidate.A policeman was killed in a shooting outside a polling station in Cairo Wednesday morning. The policeman, Mohamed Emmara, was shot while he was trying to intervene to settle a brawl between two people who exchanged fire in front of a polling station in Cairo's Shubra district.The polling stations witnessed a high turnout after the voting went on. In some areas, voters lined up several hundred meters long to wait.Mohamed Rady, 55, said he decided to vote for Aboul Fotouh who was labeled as a moderate Islamist. "I believe Fotouh can promote Egypt as he promised, I like him as he is neither extremist nor very liberal.""For sure, we as Egyptians are experiencing a great change. We all should make use of it and cope with the changes that have already happened, which means that we must sweep away all traces of the former regime," Rady noted.For Fatma Mohamed, who described herself as a 56-year-old housewife, choosing a president with her own hands was an exciting experience."I'm here with my husband. Frankly, this is the second time I cast a vote in my whole life after the last parliamentary election, " said Fatma. "I never cast a vote before the Jan. 25 unrest. That is why I was keen on coming so early to vote."Head of the Higher Presidential Elections Committee Farouk Sultan said on Wednesday there were some violations committed by the candidates related to the electoral silence."There are three in different agents for presidential candidates Shafiq, Morsi, and Fotouh in different electoral committees. They were promoting their candidates and were referred to the General Prosecution to take the necessary measures," Sultan said.Among the 12 presidential candidates, top hopefuls are former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Islamist Aboul Fotouh, Freedom and Justice Party chairman Mohamed Morsi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq and left-wing Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahy.Government employees have one day off for the voting and school classes were also halted. Polling stations close at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) for the two-day voting.To ensure the transparency and fairness of the elections, 14, 500 judges and 65,000 public servants were deployed nationwide to monitor the process. Three foreign civil society organizations and 49 local ones were allowed to observe the event. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is also in Egypt to monitor the elections with his Carter Center.The ruling military council has vowed to ensure free and fair elections and urged citizens to participate.Citizens' participation would send a message to the world that the polls are conducted in free will, said Major General Mohamed el-Assar, a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ( SCAF) on Tuesday.The general told reporters that people would accept the results and that the new president would meet their demands.Analysts say it is unlikely to have a clear winner in the first round as the votes divide among popular candidates. The run-off will be held in June. To win the elections requires a candidate to gain over 50 percent of the votes.The results of the polls will be announced on June 21. The SCAF, which took over power from Mubarak, is expected to transfer power to the new president by June 30, which marks the end of the transitional period.As the standoff about the constituent assembly remains, the new president's power is not clear.Early this year, Egyptians elected a new parliament, of which the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and Salafist Nour Party occupied more than 70 percent of seats. The competition for the presidency is mainly between Islamists and secular politicians.
A woman takes away her medicines after paying for them at Beijing Friendship Hospital on Monday. By Li Wen ( Photo)By Shan Juan and Wang QingyunBEIJING, July 3 (net) --All public hospitals in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen and one in Beijing have begun scrapping their drug markups, leading the way in a comprehensive public hospital reform aimed at improving the quality of medical services and lower drug costs.On Sunday, the hospitals in both cities undertook what is deemed the boldest and hardest part of the medical reforms as a trial of the policy intended to take effect across the Chinese mainland, said Ma Xiaowei, vice-minister of health, while inspecting Beijing Friendship Hospital, which was selected for the trial.Public hospitals on the mainland began in early 1980s to make money selling medicine to support their daily operations after government funding cutbacks.?As a result, doctors have tended to prescribe excessive or unnecessary medicines, driving up medical costs and straining doctor-patient relationships, according to Ma.Under the new initiative, the markup is removed and the economic losses incurred will be covered by increasing medical consultation and service fees.For a long time, doctors' consultation fees at Beijing's public hospitals cost at most 14 yuan ($2). In the trial at Beijing Friendship Hospital, consultations cost 42 to 100 yuan. Patients covered by the capital's public healthcare insurance will be reimbursed 40 yuan for each medical consultation, so the out-of-pocket cost of seeing a top specialist is 20 to 60 yuan. "As we have expected, the number of patients going to the ordinary outpatient sector increased after the trial began," Liu Jian, president of the hospital, said at a news conference on Monday.The hospital saw 1,849 outpatients by 4 pm on Sunday. Compared with previous Sundays, the workload this Sunday almost doubled, and the increase mainly took place in the ordinary outpatient sector, Liu said, indicating more people chose to see an ordinary doctor instead of a veteran specialist.Han Xiaofang, head of the capital's medical reform office, said medicine sales generate costs instead of gaining profits for the hospital.?"Doctors will prescribe medicines more rationally than before," she said. "That will help optimize the use of the healthcare insurance fund, and ease the heavy workload at large public hospitals and on their experts by raising the consultation fee."Previously, 50 to 60 percent of the hospital's revenue came from selling medicines, Liu Jian said. The markup in medicines prices brought 110 million yuan to the hospital in 2010 and 126 million yuan in 2011."It is estimated the higher consultation fee will make up for most of the loss, though the hospital's revenue will decrease slightly, by 2.2 million yuan after the reform," Liu said.Patients have mixed thoughts about the initiative.A patient coming from Shandong province to the hospital to treat a blood disease said he didn't see his medical cost change much."I used to pay about 700 yuan for the consultation and medicines. Now the same medicines cost 80 yuan less, but consulting the veteran specialist I used to see cost 100 yuan, which is about 80 yuan more than before," he said.A patient surnamed Hou said she had a stroke and chose to see an ordinary doctor because the consultation fee for a specialist was too expensive for her, and she would get no health insurance reimbursement because she was not a Beijing resident.Many patients said they would not consider consulting a top specialist because they would have to pay at least 20 yuan out of pocket.Another patient in the hospital showed two of his receipts and said his hepatitis prescriptions dropped from 322 to 280 yuan.The medicine costs for Shenzhen public hospital patients also dropped, the city's commission of health, population and family planning said.Inpatients would save about 7 yuan and outpatients 235 yuan, it said.?The commission estimated removing the markup would cost local public hospitals 10 million yuan, which would be covered by the higher consultation and service fees and subsidies from the city and provincial governments.(Source: China Daily)
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