Fire-fighting

Sir: Your editorial raised the persistent problem of predicting major international disasters in a timely enough way to prepare (‘Eclipses and revolutions’, 29 April). The US academic Joseph Nye said that a good model for wars is to identify three types of cause: deep (the logs for a fire), intermediate (the kindling) and immediate (the sparks). The dilemma is that there are often so many crises on the brink of igniting that preparing early for dozens stretches many governments.

Struan Macdonald

Hayes, Kent

Brain drain from Africa

Sir: The majority of Sudanese doctors working in Britain will have been trained in Sudan at local government expense (Eclipses and revolutions’, 29 April). But pay and conditions being what they are in most of Africa, over the years these doctors have successfully negotiated their way to greener pastures in the West, and the NHS was quite happy to poach them. The medical brain-drain system is widespread across Africa and continues to contribute to the poor health of its people.

I find it surprising that the fleeing doctors seem not to consider that being nationals of Sudan, with or without a British passport, they might have felt obliged to stay and help in the hospitals of their less fortunate compatriots who did not manage to get the right documentation.

Paul Fenton (Former professor of anaesthesia)

Malawi

General childcare

Sir: Your correspondent Robin Hunter-Coddington (Letters, 22 April) might be interested to hear of my acquaintance with the POWs who worked for him in Bridgend. When I went to stay with my grandparents, Nana would instruct Grandpa to take me for walks. However, as a popular publican in town, he had ‘business’ to do, and betting-shop visits. I was left in the care of General Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt and his fellow prisoners, who took me to marvel at birds’ nests and made me a Russian-style traditional ‘pecking hen’ toy out of wood, the markings done with burnt matches. I cherished it for years. Von Rundstedt said he missed his grandchildren and showed me a photograph of himself mounted on a fine horse in front of his mansion. Most German officers of rank were from distinguished Prussian families. I must have been four or five years old, and this is almost my earliest memory. What a different age when trust abounded in such circumstances.

Rita Tait

Mardy, Monmouthshire

Seeing red

Sir: The Red Squirrel Survival Trust is dedicated to supporting these lovely animals and the native British woodland they depend on. We are sorry that Matt Ridley is not now seeing reds in his Northumberland garden (‘Notes on… red squirrels’, 22 April), but I can assure him that they are thriving elsewhere in the county, with many other populations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Matt writes that research at the Animal and Plant Health Agency near York is developing a contraceptive vaccine for grey squirrels that shows promise, but is on a fundraising shoestring. This is not strictly accurate. The Red Squirrel Survival Trust and the UK Squirrel Accord have ensured that the work to produce an oral fertility control bait is fully funded and, under the guidance of Defra, it will be going out on national field trials early next year. A feeding station that only grey squirrels can access has been developed by APHA. We are confident that the fertility control programme will meet the necessary controls and once registered can be made available to land and forestry owners, farmers and gardeners, where it will help ensure a significant reduction in grey squirrel numbers and secure the long-term future of the red squirrel population. This will also result in the protection and biodiversity of our native woods and forests. Hopefully another result of this will be a return of red squirrels to Matt’s Northumberland garden.

Vanessa Fawcett

Director, the Red Squirrel Survival Trust

London EC4

Grave concerns

Sir: Mark Mason’s article on undertakers and coffins (‘Why I’ve built my own coffin’, 15 April) sparked a memory. In 1985 my father and I were being nudged towards a ‘superior’ coffin for my mother. My father selected the cheapest, only to be told by the undertaker that this design was ‘always chosen by people who lived in council houses’. Unbelievable!

Graham Warren

Granada, Spain

About Falun Gong

Sir: Rupert Christiansen’s review of Shen Yun at the Eventim Apollo (Arts, 22 April) contains a number of misleading or false statements. He writes that ‘Falun Gong accuses the state of torture, arbitrary arrests and organ harvesting’. This suggests it is merely an accusation – but it has been well documented by human rights organisations and the United Nations that Falun Gong has been brutally persecuted in China. Millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained, imprisoned or tortured over the past two decades. A 30-year-old Falun Gong practitioner, Pang Xun, was tortured to death in prison in December last year, bringing the number of documented Falun Gong deaths due to persecution to 4,921. And an untold number have been killed through forced organ harvesting.

Falun Gong is practised by ethnicities all over the world. It has no Scientology connection, and nor does it have any ‘political alignment’: the teachings even encourage practitioners not to get involved in politics. The article says ‘at first glance it can look harmless enough…’ – but there is no evidence to suggest that Falun Gong is anything other than harmless. Insinuating otherwise fuels CCP propaganda against this vulnerable group.

Dr William Liu

Chair, UK Falun Dafa Association, London