AsiaPundit finds so  much  wrong with this short film from the Sundance Film Festival that no serious criticism will be attempted. Briefly, it’s mercantalist, protectionist, and very loose with facts. Still, enjoy fragrant monkey tail!

(via CDT)
It has taken two hours too complete the last two posts due to "errors from upstream servers" while uploading pictures. TypePad clearly enjoys fragrant monkey tail.

Not a surprise, but China has ordered media not to publish the Mohammad cartoons. More surprising, domestic media have been instructed not to mention anything further about the devolving mess.:

Got word of an new injunction: no publication of the Danish cartoons that have pitted one fourth of the world’s population bitterly, even violently, against Europe; no further coverage of the aftermath.

Too bad. I was actually thinking of doing something on that. But the censors certainly reacted too late this time. Guess they don’t pull Spring Festival shifts like us journalists do. The "damage", whatever it is, is already done. Domestic media have covered the whole sad affair, the violence included. Although somewhat timidly when it comes to the European papers’ defence of and insistence on, their freedom of speech. Maybe this very phrase is already banned in publications.

Most of my colleagues’ reaction to the news of the ban was something like "Yeah, right. As if we WERE REALLY PLANNING to run those cartoons", followed by some verbal abuse concerning certain people’s potential IQ scores. Even without instruction I think Chinese papers do have the good sense not to do that.

But what about simple, brief and unbiased coverage of the aftermath? Or subtle-worded op-ed pieces on the issue that might appear in the press? Are the censors worried that even this could be harmful to religious and ethnic relations?  I guess so but it’s almost impossible to stand in their shoes and follow their perverse thoughts.

AsiaPundit will not be publishing any the cartoons that caused such an excuse to pillage and riot offense. However, in solidarity with the right of press freedom, the right to criticize religions, and the right to give offense, AsiaPundit will  publish a 21st century image of Mr Jacques Barrot, winner of the French Pig-Squealing Championships in rie-sur-Baise’s annual festival.:

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, cartoons

China has shown a sharp downward trend in press freedoms last year, while the Philippines remains dangerous and North Korea abysmal.:

While some countries in Asia have remained stable with regard to media freedom, there have been sharp downward trends in several Asian countries, particularly China, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that monitors press freedoms around the world, assessed the levels of press freedom in countries based on the prevailing legal environment, political and economic situation and the overall attitudes of authorities towards the media.

The surveys were generally concordant in their results, with China, Nepal, North Korea and the Philippines remaining the biggest causes of concern for journalists in Asia.

"Compared to last year, there really aren’t many positives in Asia," said Karin Karlekar, Managing Editor of the Freedom House survey. "While some countries have remained steady [Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong], we can see downward trends in many countries in the region."

North Korea was found to be the worst country in all surveys, showing no signs of improvement over the past couple of years. All media in North Korea continue to remain tools of Kim Jong-il’s state, while all foreign media are repeatedly portrayed by the regime as "liars" seeking to destabilize the government, according to the Freedom House report. However, the report also suggests that an increase in international trade has resulted in greater contact with foreigners, which might allow for greater access to international news reports in the near future.

China has also shown a sharp downward trend in 2005, said Karlekar, which can be attributed to increased censorship of newspapers and radio stations, and greater Internet surveillance.

According to RSF, the so-called "broadcasting Great Wall" in China has been growing over the past year: The Voice of Tibet, the BBC and Radio Free Asia are among the radio stations jammed by the government in 2005. 

• Reporters Withouth Borders - Wordlwide Press Freedom Index 2005 
• International Federation of Journalists - Targeting and Tragedy 
• Freedom House - Freedom of the Press 2005

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, north korea, northeast asia, south asia, thailand, burma

At We Make Money Not Art, excerpts from a discussion of the internet and social networking in China.:

There’s over 100 million users of internet in China, making it the country with the most internet users in the world. The typical net surfer used to be male, urban, high-educated, in his 20-30. It’s becoming less so. Active bottom up. Now more women and less educated people are catching up.

How people use the internet: in China there’s a very lively amateur culture. What’s different in China from other parts of the world is the huge sense of humour when writing about daily life and world/national events.

Many people make and exchange flash movies, swap lots of files. Commercial portal are thriving (big portals dealing with celebrities for example) but e-commerce hasn’t taken off yet.

The Middle Landscape. The internet has become a middle landscape between the public sphere and the commercial sphere. These two separate realms merge on the internet. On blogs and bulletin boards that mostly discuss commercial matters, someone might start a discussion on a recent event (like a murder hidden by the authorities) and a long discussion will start.

The Middle Landscape in another sense: the internet as a middle landscape between the private and the public sphere. Bloggers and wikipedians against the governement. Governement is loosing control over the private domain (in the past, employees had to get an authorisation to get married, it’s no longer the case.) The internet is very hard to control although there are rules to restrict what people can write. If you want to open a blog you have to give your name and address. Companies like Google, Microsoft or Cisco, help the governement to shut up the voices and restrict the new freedom.

On the other hand, Chinese have now a service they didn’t have before. For each new rules imposed by the government, bloggers and wikipedians make a counter attack.

The Social Brain Foundation is inviting people in the West to adopt a Chinese blog on their personal web server to make it harder to control or block the blogs (only i found).

Are public sphere and civil society emerging? De Waal asked several actors whom have different perspectives.

Jack Qiu: no, we’re not seeing this promised new freedom. In China, internet is given as a toy to people to play with, not to provide them with more possibilities of expression.

Michael Anti (who had his weblog shut down by the governement): yes, there’s a gradual development. People are willing to see things change even if the governement doesn’t agree.

Technorati Tags: asia, blogs, censorship, china, east asia, northeast asia

Disturbing:

That is correct, ladies and gentlemen, Bollywood is remaking Fight Club. Apparently the 1999 original version did not have enough muscial scenes for the Indian audiance’s taste.

Trailer 1 - "Rule #1. You break it, you buy it."

Trailer 2 - "Rule #2. Thank you, come again."

Muscial scene 1 - Rain stage in a crowded club where memebers of the fight club dance around a stripper pole, what is that all about?

Muscial scene 2 - Man and woman dance (or dry humping) to the music on the beach, then camera cuts to Fight Club poster.

Musical scene 3 - Esteban clones dance behind the female lead, and she sings "you gotta go fight them".

Muscial scene 4 - With the background looks like came straight out of "The Sound of Music", a young couple shares a song on top of a mountain and log stacks?!

Technorati Tags: india, south asia, asia, fight club