Danwei reports that it’s now officially OK to be gay in China, with Shanghai’s Fudan University launching a gay studies course and state-owned Xinhua’s biweekly Globe.running a feature article on the troubles of China’s homosexuals. Bingfeng reports that it’s also Ok to be lesbian.
Nitin ponder’s the difference between Manmohan Singh and Junichiro Koizumi.
Amit Varma points to an editorial concerned with the competition between India and China - but in diplomatic and not economic spheres.
We in India are not paying enough attention to the steady accrual of Chinese soft power. There is a complacent view that this is an area where India is stronger and will continue to be so for a long time. India is banking on its open society, its lead in higher education, and its relative advantage in English. We are profoundly mistaken if we think that this will keep us ahead of China. Already, in an intellectual field that we thought we had a comfortable lead in, namely International Relations, we have fallen behind.
As Amit notes elsewhere, India and China seem to be able to come to terms with each other in economic cooperation.:
Indian and Chinese oil firms will sign agreements aimed at bidding jointly for foreign oil and gas projects and reducing cut-throat competition, a top Indian official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The energy-hungry Asian giants, which have stretched global supplies and contributed to the record rise in oil prices, are competing for stakes in foreign oil and gas projects to secure supplies.
Also at the Indian Economist, Reuben Abraham notes that India is making major progress in the pharmaceutical industry, securing the second-highest number of patents after the US.
Blogs are becoming a business in China, soon your blog may be outsourced!
I lived in Singapore for five years. It usually passes for a normal country. But it has its quirks. One is that the state media is occasionally as blatant as the North Korean Central News Agency in its obsequiousness. For example, here is Channel News Asia’s apprasial of the presidential ‘election’ where the People’s Action Party disqualified all but one candidate.
But this time around, Mr Nathan will emerge an even stronger winner backed by a sterling six-year track record, where he served with distinction and won the hearts and support of Singaporeans from all walks of life.
Jacob at Omeka Na Huria has other thoughts.
Imagethief has a message for the China Daily: Cell phones do not attract lightning! (see bottom paragraph of this Snopes item).
Tokyo is having a property bubble.
Kenny Sia has set up an app for translating websites into Benglish.
Malaysian plantation owners are denying any complicity in causing the haze.
OneFreeKorea has a roundup of Liberation Day, a date that will live in irony.
