Now is the moment at AsiaPundit when we enjoy our feeling of schadenfreude. After a long career that included maintaining control by silencing independent media and internet critics, Malaysia’s former prime minister is complaining that the country’s mainstream press is  ignoring him and that he has to independently publish on the internet to get attention.:

With his comments increasingly ‘censored’ in the pro-government mainstream media, former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad has now resorted to air his hard-hitting arguments in cyberspace, says Malaysiakini.

Yesterday, Malaysiakini carried a story that summarises, in English, Dr Mahathir’s open letter that was gagged by the mainstream media though some of them maintained that they practised a ‘deliberate policy of openness’ under the Abdullah administration.

In his seven-page letter published in a pro-Umno website called Kelab Maya Umno, Mahathir reiterated that the government had failed to defend the nation’s sovereignty.Quote:



“I must publicise the facts in this manner because not many of my statements are being published by the mass media, although they send representatives to attend my press conferences,” he lamented.

Malaysia’s press is largely state-controlled and the current administration doesn’t care to hear from Dr M. But Dr M may want to consider the following: just because the press doesn’t print your comments doesn’t mean you are being censored, it may just mean that you are irrelevant.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, malaysia, southeast asia

This is not yet the time at AsiaPundit when we dance. This is the time at AsiaPundit when we again pause to appreciate the weirdness of Japanese television.:

Cohost Tamura Atsushi set about to help one of the show’s regulars, former-gravure- idol-turned-short-lived-80s-pop-star Aota Noriko (pictured), achieve her dream of reviving her singing career.

To accomplish this, Tamura went to famed music producer Komuro Tetsuya and received an unproduced single from his back catalogue. He then went to one of Komuro’s most successful acts, pop/ dance group TRF, for help with choreographing. After nearly a month of voice training, dance lessons and intense exercise, Aota — performing under the stage name of Bubble Aota — gave a live concert before 2,500-strong audience, including Japanese impersonators of Madonna, Michael Jackson and Robert De Niro (Teru from comedy duo Doyo).

Sounds pretty uninteresting, right?

…consider the title of the song: ‘Jesus‘. No, it isn’t a religious hymn praising the Lord and Savior of Christianity or whatever; it’s actually bumping dance track about seduction and the bearded fellow from Nazareth, with a nutty chorus of “I wanna kiss Jesus power and soul.”

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

AsiaPundit has been an on-and-off admirer of Paul Krugman for many years. AP particularly enjoyed some of his essays prior to and after the Asian FInancial Crisis, although he did find much of Krugman’s non-economic New York Times work excessively polemic.

But all things considered — and whatever your political inclination — when Krugman speaks on currencies he should be listened to.

Via the New Economist, a Krugman essay (not column) on the prospects of a dollar crisis.:

Concerns about a dollar crisis can be divided into two questions: Will there be a plunge in the dollar? Will this plunge have nasty macroeconomic consequences?

The answer to the first question depends on whether there is investor myopia, a failure to take into account the requirement that the dollar eventually fall enough to stabilize U.S. external debt at a feasible level. Although it’s always dangerous to second guess markets, the data do seem to suggest such myopia… The various rationales and rationalizations for the U.S. current account deficit that have been advanced in recent years don’t seem to help us avoid the conclusion that investors aren’t taking the need for future dollar decline into account. So it seems likely that there will be a Wile E. Coyote moment when investors realize that the dollar’s value doesn’t make sense, and that value plunges.

(Image stolen from here.)

Technorati Tags: asia, dollar, money, economy

If anyone in China is keeping a paper mistress, AsiaPundit recommends that she be burned before this law comes into effect.:

CHINA will ban the burning of paper villas, condoms and mistresses as sacrificial articles to curb the “vulgar” practice in future, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Those who burn these things will be punished, the Huaxi Metropolis Newspaper reported, citing Dou Yupei, vice minister of civil affairs, without elaborating.

Dou was attending a national meeting on funeral services in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, on Sunday.

Burning such articles will be prohibited in the funeral services regulations that the State Council, China’s Cabinet, is revising, Dou said.

Around the Qingming Festival, which falls on April 5, people traditionally burn fake coins and banknotes at a cemetery in the hope that their ancestors and deceased relatives have enough money in the after world.

(via Bills Due, Sailor Moon ‘paper mistress’ stolen from here.)

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

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo notes with alarm that women are wearing shorter and shorter skirts.:

Miniskirts which are so short that passersby feel embarrassed just to see them are hitting the street in Korea in the spring season of 2006. They are not just mini. They are super-miniskirts with their total length less than 25 cm. Such super-miniskirts, which got some 10 cm shorter from 10 years ago, are selling like hot cakes, some 2,500-3,000 units on average a day in G-Market, a local online shopping mall, and Auction, the trading site…..

Why are super-miniskirts so popular? There are a variety of socio-economic explanations. As the economy slips into deeper recession, miniskirts become increasingly popular, some say. When skirts get shorter, stock prices rise, say others. Gong Min-kyung (26), a woman wearing a super miniskirt in Yeoksamdong, Seoul on Friday said it is just for their satisfaction. A college student said, “When I wear a super-miniskirt, mesh stockings and 7-cm heels, it creates an optical illusion to make me look more than 10 cm taller than I really am.”

AsiaPundit will note that South Korea is not presently in a recession, leading him to concur with The Flea that the socio-economic theory is less satisfying than this optical-illusion explanation.

More seriously, the increase of miniskirt wearing is a significant symbol of Korea’s democratic development and should be welcomed.

Until recently, Korean police officers regularly stopped those young people who were brave enough to make attempts at fashion statements and measured their miniskirts (right) and forcibly cut their hair. Both these photos are from 1973. Even nowadays, many older Koreans won’t hesitate to publicly chew out young strangers they think are behaving immodestly.

Michelle Leslie, the Australian lingerie model who was tried and acquitted after being charged with drug possession in Indonesia, has returned to the catwalk — shedding the burka that she had donned for the trial.:

Eight months after walking into Bali’s Kerobokan Prison on drugs charges, five months after walking into a media storm in Sydney, Leslie made her triumphant return to the Sydney fashion scene doing what she knows best: walking the runway.

Closing the show in one of the most modest one-piece swimsuits ever to grace an Azzollini collection - which is better-known for its ultra-skimpy styles and risque catalogue shoots - Leslie looked nervous. But the look on her face after the show said it all: palpable relief.

“It was amazing. I had a great time, thank you, it’s great to be back at work,” she told the Herald, before being mobbed by a throng of paparazzi and camera crews outside the Rosebery venue with her boyfriend, Scott Sutton, and Azzollini’s business partner, Kate Nicholes, in tow.

Leslie announced after the arrest that she had converted to Islam prior to the charge, and underwent trial in a burka (generally excessive dress even for Indonesian Muslims). Michelle was also fortunate enough to have been with the son of Indonesia’s economics minister at the time of arrest. More details here.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, michelle leslie, southeast asia

China’s is continuing to modernize its military with the latest advancement being the adoption of human stealth technology.:

China’s military is tightening its standards for recruiting potential officers as it adjusts to changing social trends, ordering drug and psychological tests, among other new requirements, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday, citing a military health official.

The People’s Liberation Army headquarters released the new recruitment rules Sunday, it said.

Recruits with fashionable tattoos will be barred from military schools, although traditional tattoos of ethnic minorities will be allowed if they are not too obvious when the recruit is wearing summer shorts, Li Chunming, the army health official, was cited as saying.

“Tattoos will tarnish the military’s image, even the scars of removed tattoos,” Li said.

Heavy snorers will also be banned, he said. The report did not say how the army would test for that problem.

As well as the above linked GI Korea, the new PLA regulations have also been noted by Imagethief:

Now, Imagethief has never served a day in the armed forces (and he notes that he would be disqualified from Chinese military service under the new rules), so he is not an expert on such things. But word has it that life under arms can occasionally be a bit loud. Tanks, helicopters, angry drill instructors, shellfire. If one is expected to be able to sleep through all that din, surely a little midnight sinus-tune couldn’t hurt that much? Or could it?

As someone who requires dead silence to sleep, I may be the wrong person to ask. Nevertheless, one gets the feeling the PLA may be becoming a tad too choosy in its recruiting.

AsiaPundit has never been a soldier, but as someone who does snore and has been on camping expeditions with fellow snorers, he endorses the PLA’s new regulation. As well as lessening the chance that sleeping soldiers will be detected by enemy forces , the new anti-snoring policy will improve the quality of sleep achieved by its troops. Taipei should implement countermeasures.

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