AsiaPundit did not write about recent allegations from the FLG that the Chinese government was maintaing a 6,000 person death camp/organ donation farm in Sujiatun. The reports originated from the Epoch Times and  AP is generally skeptical about anything that is in that paper.

That’s especially true when reports allege such things as 100,000-person concentration camps and mystery night trains for prisoner transport.  AP did, however, briefly join in a discussion on the report at the excellent Korea Liberator site.

The Epoch Times report was debunked by US consular staff.  While that confirmed AP’s original suspicions that the reports were exaggerated, it is not the end of the story. The British Transplantation Society is today alleging that China is killing prisoners so that organs are available on a just-in-time (JIT) basis.:

The British Transplantation Society says an accumulating weight of evidence suggests the organs of thousands of executed prisoners in China are being removed for transplants without consent.

Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society’s ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution.

Chinese officials deny the allegations.

Just last week a Chinese health official said publicly that organs from executed prisoners were sometimes used, but only with prior permission and in a very few cases. But widespread allegations have persisted for several years - including from international human rights groups.

AP takes these allegations more seriously than the ones in the Epoch Times. They are from a professional (and presumably apolitical) organization. The organization avoids the wild claims made by the FLG and, most importantly, the photo of the kidney container in the above-linked BBC report looks suspiciously like a Chinese take-away box. That’s really creepy given the context.

AP will not, for the moment comment further on the reliability of the Epoch Times and will instead defer to Holidarity, who offers an excellent post on how many journalists view the group.:

They want us to pick up on their stories, but not ask too much about how and where they get them. While no one else in the world has bloody photos of massacres like Shanwei, they do. And their sources for these stories must be so delicate that extreme secrecy can be understood. But not absolute secrecy - because in the end that is only propaganda. And I think with something as big as this alleged organ harvesting in Shenyang, outside confirmation is the only thing that will make people believe it - and believe them. In a lot of ways, the Epoch Times’ credibility is on the line with this one.

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

AsiaPundit is disturbed by this item, if only because he expects that the wine he regularly buys at Carrefour is made with 100% grape and he expects better quality control.:

Suppose you would want to buy a Louis Vuitton bag in Shanghai. You could go to the Xiangyang Market where you can buy a fake one for less than RMB 100. But if you want to buy a real product you’d better go to an international chain store, to make sure you get the real thing. Carrefour for example. And what does the bag cost there? Only RMB 49.90 (less than EUR 5) as employees of LV found out! Because the retail price is normally around RMB 9000 this did not smell right. And indeed, the bags were as fake as they could be.

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

Bill Gates and Chinese President Hu Jintao had a lovely dinner yesterday. And China has pledged to help combat the piracy of the firms products. AsiaPundit wonders, however, what China is doing for the company’s on-line ventures — especially the popular MSN Spaces.

The service, at the moment, is largely inaccessible in Shanghai and Beijing. Trace route tests from Shanghai indicate that access is being lost at the level of the Great Firewall. (click for larger image).

Tests on the Beijing side, however,indicate that the loss of data is occurring at the Microsoft side.:

As well as trace route and ‘ping’ testing, attempts to access through browsers in Beijing and Shanghai — including one by Microsoft’s China spokesman — failed. Access also seems to be unavailable in Haining, said the Unabrewer.

However, AsiaPundit was just told that Microsoft’s engineers could access the site at the China headquarters. If so, this would unlikely be a state-ordered block. If it was, the irony would have been rich.

Hu Jintao and Bill Gates just had a lovely dinner together on Tuesday and apparently struck an amicable friendship.:

While expressing admiration for what Gates has achieved at Microsoft, Hu also added jovially that, “Because you, Mr. Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I’m a friend of Microsoft," according to The Seattle Times.

As well as the friendship with Hu, MSN China is a joint venture between Microsoft and Shanghai Alliance Entertainment, a firm owned by a son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. On the face of it, one would think that Microsoft is too well connected to be the target of a Firewall-level block.

Besides, Microsoft will block websites as requested, so there really wouldn’t be a need for any state action against the MSN Spaces service. 

AsiaPundit has been told that the company’s technicians are looking into the problem, although clear answers will not likely be available until people start waking up in Redmond. Accidental blocks often occur when website changes are made by content providers, as had happened with the New York Times recently. Sites are also accidently unblocked when changes are made, as happened to TypePad when it changed servers last year.

For now, AP is inclined to believe that the MSN Spaces problem is of a technical nature. That’s a shame. While a Firewall-level block would no doubt be a great disappointment to local users of MSN Spaces, it would also have been a great news story.

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

According to a study by the University of Chicago, Asians - and Asian women in particular - are not as happy as Westerners with their sex lives.:

The survey published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior looked at how they viewed their sex lives, their health, and their happiness.

It found that a greater proportion of people in Europe, North America, and Australia, where men and women have more or less equal relations, enjoyed sex physically and emotionally, Laumann said.

A smaller percentage of people reported satisfying sex lives in male-dominated cultures in poorer countries, the research showed.

But the gender gap persisted around the world.

“There’s a systematic disparity between men and women, where men are on the average substantially — or about 10 points — higher in their levels of satisfaction as women in that country,” he said.

Most of those surveyed at random were married, though there was an obvious bias toward participants who were willing to talk about sex, and toward urban populations in less-developed nations.

“Pleasure is not part of the story” in sexually conservative cultures in the Far East — China, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, Laumann said. “Procreation is the rationale for sex. Many women … characterize sex as dirty, as a duty, something they endure” — and often stop having it after age 50…..

In Japan, by contrast, just 18 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women answered positively about their sex lives. And in Taiwan, only 7 percent of the women said sex was very important in their lives.

There is likely a great deal of untruthful answers in a survey like this, given the taboo nature of the subject, but it is almost certainly more reliable than the Durex survey,

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, indonesia, northeast asia, southeast asia, taiwan, thailand

IndCoup noted an article last week by ex-World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz praising Chinese planning. Sarapan Ekonomi, an Indonesian economics blog, .

IndCoup ponders Joseph Stiglitz’s praise on China’s miraculous economic development, on which Greenstump speculates that IndCoup “believes China is a model Indonesia should follow”.

Regardless, in terms of economic growth, poverty reduction, and population control, Indonesia is every bit as “miraculous” as China.

Since the late 1960s, both Indonesia and China has been growing fast. Moreover, as shown in the graph above, average Indonesians had been always richer than people of China. Until the 1998 financial crises, that is, when the Indonesia’s economy shrank by 13 percent and has been growing slower since.

Still, Indonesia’s poverty today is in no way worse than China’s; For example, China’s poverty gap at $1 a day (a measure of incidence and depth of poverty) is 4 percent, while Indonesia’s is less than 1 percent.

AsiaPundit also took exception with the Stiglitz article which starts out with this premise.:

Part of the key to China’s long-run success has been its almost unique combination of pragmatism and vision. While much of the rest of the developing world, following the Washington consensus, has been directed at a quixotic quest for higher GDP, China has again made clear that it seeks sustainable and more equitable increases in real living standards.

It surprises AP that Stiglitz, after three years of working with the World Bank, would feign such ignorance. Since the Deng Xiaoping-era China has consistently put emphasis on GDP growth over income equality or social welfare. The shift he is now praising is largely a creation of the newest five-year plan.

That said, AP agrees that much of the five-year plan is reasonable. It’s largely agreed that more even income distribution and stronger domestic consumption are needed. The fallen tigers of ‘97, generally, did not consider the importance of domestic demand until after their export-driven economies collapsed. China is wise to do so now.

The respective rebounds of the victims of ‘97, in part, were based upon how quickly they shifted to policies that stoked domestic demand.

South Korea quickly cleared bad loans and, in a rather insane manner, promoted consumption through personal debt (creating a new credit crisis in the process), Thailand did less but it did extend rural credit and ran a moderately successful asset management program for debt. Indonesia struggled with political turmoil and indecision for most of the post-1997 years. AP will not speculate on how China will fare.

That China is preemptively addressing issues that the rest of Asia did after 1997, and after Japan’s bubble burst, is welcome. However, AP is not confident that the country will do so successfully before its own imminent correction.

China’s miracle is impressive. So too were Korea’s, Thailand’s and Indonesia’s. AP will withhold judgement on how China’s overall economic management rates until after he sees how the country responds to a deep recession. He will give the state some credit, for instance, this is far more sensible than anything he was hearing from the pre-1997 Bank of Korea. But broader comparisons of China and Indonesia will be withheld until the former has its crisis.

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

Following the almost universally damned launch of Google’s censored Chinese service, AOL in February received praise from some quarters for launching a Chinese language portal that would offer uncensored content. However, it said the service would be Chinese speakers living outside of the mainland.

It was announced yesterday that Shanghai Media Group (SMG) had reached a deal to provide content to the AOL Chinese portal. Reuters reports on the deal here and Xinhua reports on it here.

While it had gone largely unnoticed in initial news reports that the original Google Chinese language site () remained available in China alongside the censored , it has gone completely unnoticed that the AOL service has been rendered inaccessible in mainland China.

A SMG spokeswoman said that the company was aware that the service was unavailable in Mainland China and restated that the AOL portal is intended for overseas Chinese.

Essentially, Google is still providing uncensored search results in China while AOL now is buying Chinese content from a state-linked media group to broadcast outside of China.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. AsiaPundit just finds it funny.

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

Global Voices editor Hao Wu remains imprisoned without charge by Beijing’s Public Security Bureau. With the initial burst of reporting and support having failed to secure his release, GV has launched a petition to directly appeal to President Hu Jintao.:

Many Global Voices readers have asked what they can do to hasten our friend and colleage Hao Wu’s release from detention in Beijing. Hundreds of you have put badges on your blogs and webpages to call attention to Hao Wu’s detention, and this support has helped generate media interest in the situation.

We’d hoped that media pressure would lead to Hu Jintao to release Hao prior to his upcoming meeting with President Bush. Unfortunately, this looks increasingly unlikely. So today we’re launching a letter-writing campaign and a petition to ask for Hao’s immediate release.

Rebecca launched the letter writing campaign earlier today, and we’re encouraging readers to write to their national governments, to the Chinese ambassadors in their nation, to their local newspapers, and to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Her post offers key pieces of information to include in letters or op-eds as well some useful addresses.

We’ve also launched an online petition, demanding that President Hu Jintao release Hao immediately.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, corruption, east asia, northeast asia, freehaowu

The Leaky Pen, having ventured into a Taichung book store to discover that students were most interested in porn and video games, writes a lament on the demise of Taiwan’s comic culture.:

Unlike Hong, the comic book artists of post-WWII era were not so funny. By far the most famous and influential comic book artist of the 1950s was the pseudonymous writer named “Brother Cow,” 牛哥 (1925-1997), whose real name was Lee Fei-meng (李費蒙). Lee was a mainlander who escaped from China and came to Taiwan with the KMT in 1949. His anti-Communist strips were characterized by stupid, Ah-Q looking Chinese characters with buck teeth and bald heads and evil Communist overlords (some of it displaying a very weird sense of ’self-racism’).

In 1966, the same year that the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” began in China, a draconian policy of comics censorship was put in place in Taiwan called the “comics censorship law” 《漫畫審查辦法》. According to this policy, the National Editorial Bureau (i.e., the national censorship board) could filter anything and everything, especially anything critical of the Nationalist government. This was the heyday of the anti-Communist comics when everything was propaganda and propaganda was everything. The “local” comics produced during this era were of a uniformly bad quality–much like the socialist realist novels being produced in China–and failed to capture the interest of young readers. Consequently, sales of local comics declined rapidly.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, east asia, northeast asia, taiwan

China recently managed to overtake Japan to become the world’s second biggest automobile market after the US. That is in volume terms and excluding imports, but any time China beats Japan it is naturally hyped by the government and the state press.

AsiaPundit doesn’t believe he has heard anything about China besting the two largest auto markets in terms of traffic fatalities however, :

Almost 21,000 people in China died in traffic accidents during the first three months of this year and that’s 8.5 percent less than the number killed last year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.For comparison, about 42,000 people died in traffic accidents in the U.S. during the whole of 2003. China is on pace to double that number this year.

Of course, China is also home to far more people than the U.S., but at the same time, the U.S. has far more cars and more people driving. In 2002, the number of traffic deaths out of every 100,000 was between 12 and 16 in North and South American countries, according to the World Health Organization. The rate of deaths in Asia was between 16 and 19.

I couldn’t find specific numbers for China on the number of traffic deaths per 100,000 people, but am certain its on the high end of the WHO’s scale for Asia. The number of traffic deaths in China is appalling. In the first three months this year, the number of car accidents totaled 98,000, down 11.3 percent and the number of injuries was 115,000, down one percent, the government said on April 11.

The fatality rate would no doubt be higher if cars were actually able to move.:

For more traffic pictures, AsiaPundit recommends the Chinese Driving Exam.

What is the maximum amount of Styrofoam you can carry on a motorbike?

A) Maximum, what maximum?

B) Depends on how much string you have

Also related: Global Voices on driving in Vietnam, China Snippets on Shanghai’s traffic fines and Imagethief on why he doesn’t own a car in Beijing.

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

It is very important to be aware of your surroundings during an earthquake - and you should pay particularly attention to what the black man is doing.:

Check out this website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which provides information to gaijin (foreigners) about what they need to in case of an earthquake.

Stay close to black men in areas where walls might fall. They will hold up the wall and allow you escape.

Black men tend to spread rumours but become quite contrite when yelled at.

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

While much attention is given to peasant protest in China, with reports generally musing about a threat to the central government, mob violence in India does not get as much coverage. Perhaps that’s because the causes of it are often far more mundane. AsiaPundit can understand resorting to violence when property is seized, but this is incomprehensible.

Via India Uncut:

First, some idiots in Bangalore start rioting because a film-star they like is dead. Immense destruction of property takes place, a policeman is beaten to death, others also die in the violence. A psychiatrist gives soundbytes about this is “a deviant way of expressing love and affection” and “a kind of competitive destruction.”(This link via Richa.)

More at Dateline Bombay:

Yet, its the same city where thousands of youth, among others have taken to the streets following actor Raj Kumar’s demise. Pictures of mob violence are streaming in. The contrast between the engineers working in glass towers on cutting edge technology projects and the mayhem on the streets couldn’t be starker. At last count, four people including a policeman were dead. The policeman was killed by mob.

The 77-year-old Rajkumar gave up acting almost a decade ago. Its tough to believe that the youth pelting stones at policemen across the city today watched too many of his films, if any. None of the television images showed them to be grieving. Instead their faces showed the thrill one usually associates with the satisfaction of inflicting damage on the establishment. Many were performing for the cameras,leaping with joy.

Major IT companies including Microsoft, Infosys and Wipro have shut down their offices. Not really out of choice, considering that the option would be to see their beautiful campuses wrecked or the glass facades shattered. That happened anyway. The government is leading with a two-day state holiday that began yesterday.

Technorati Tags: asia, india, rajkumar, south asia

While China may be willing to crackdown on some intellectual property violations more heavily in light of the presidential summit, AsiaPundit does not expect it to allow a patent inspection on these babies:

A Chinese media report from last week indicates the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now has at hand locally manufactured air defense missiles based on American Patriot missile technology, most likely used in the Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) system. The technology was reportedly provided to the Chinese by Israel during the 1990’s.

The Patriot-like missiles were recently tested in north-west China with successful results, knocking down a reconaissance plane and a missile. According to the Donga Ilbo, the officer who led the tests commented, “This marks the official launch of the interceptor missile unit. We can intercept not only high-flying reconnaissance planes or missiles but also low-flying targets. Our accuracy is significantly high as well.”

Patriot missiles were deployed to Israel during the 1991 Gulf War to defend Israel from Iraqi missiles. At the time, Israel promised the United States not to transfer the technology to a third party. Reports from the early 1990’s suggest that the promise was not kept, and the PAC-2 technology became one of several missile technologies the Israelis sold to the Chinese.

According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), China isn’t just manufacturing missiles based on the Patriot technology, but also using it to develop countermeasures against American Patriot systems. If that is true, that may prove to be a problem for the US and its Asian allies, particularly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

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

Via Sparkplugged, news that Japanese filmgoers will soon be treated to smell-o-vision.:

TOKYO — A theater audience in Japan will be sniffing their noses at a new Hollywood adventure film when it opens here this month.

A new service from a major telecommunications company, NTT Communications Corp., will synchronize seven different smells to parts of “The New World,” starring Colin Farrell.

A floral scent accompanies a love scene, while a mix of peppermint and rosemary is emitted during a tear-jerking scene. Joy is a citrus mix of orange and grapefruit, while anger is enhanced by a herb-like concoction.

The smells come from machines under the seats in the back rows of two movie theaters, which create different fragrances by controlling the mix of oils stored in the machines, company spokeswoman Akiko Suzaki said Wednesday.

While the new technology is a welcome advance over previous attempts at blending film with scent, the chosen odors seem more appropriate for an aromatherapy session than an adventure movie.

AsiaPundit hopes that future attempts at smell-o-vision would be better integrated with the plot and setting: the scent of cigars for the Untouchables, perfume for Scent of a Woman, and, of course, napalm for Apocalypse Now.

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

Blackberry will soon be coming to China, tightening the electronic leash around many an executive’s neck.  But Canada’s Research in Motion may have competition on the ground before they launch with domestic knock-off Redberry.:

Blackberry announced today that it will be launching its service in China by the middle of this year, through China Mobile.  Not to be upstaged, state owned China Unicom announced it will be launching its own mobile e-mail service in China, called, Redberry.  With China putting on a grand show this week (before President Hu Jintao’s upcoming United States trip) regarding its increased efforts to protect intellectual property rights in China, this China Unicom announcement seems rather untimely. I put the chances at 50-50 that "Redberry" will have a new name by the time China’s President’s plane lands in the United States.

AsiaPundit doesn’t think the Redberry issue will be too high on the agenda during the Bush-Hu summit, given that RIM is a Canadian firm and that it hasn’t had the best of luck with issues of intellectual property rights.

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

ThaRum notes that Miss Utah 2006 and that state’s representative to the Miss America pageant is creating a stir in Cambodia because of her Khmer heritage:

According to US national who has worked in Cambodia for many years, and now speaks fairly well in Khmer, Jinja is curious about what his Khmer friends think about the traditional annual American beauty contest. “Most families in the Cambodian countryside would be horrified to see their daughter enter a public swimsuit competition. But ‘Freshie Girl’ this ain’t.”

Photo taken from Soben Huon’s blogspot site.

Carl also notices at Friskodude and comments "Rarely do I get the opportunity to post Cambodian cheesecake on this blog, so I’ll take advantage with this image of the newly crowned Miss Utah, who will soon be participating in some silly American game show and competing in the Miss America contest.":

Miss Utah USA 2006 is Soben Huon, 22 years old, from Provo. She is the daughter of Matthew and Sambath Huon. Soben graduated with High Honors from Millikan High School ranking in the top fifteen percent in her class. Currently a senior at Brigham Young University, she is majoring in Political Science with an emphasis on International Relations. Her goal is to attend Stanford Law and study International Law.

As a Cambodian Classical Ballet Principle Dancer, Soben has received several awards. She also plays the violin and is a self-taught piano player. She is Cambodian and speaks fluent Khmer, the official language of Cambodia. She is also learning Spanish and French.

Technorati Tags: asia, cambodia, east asia, southeast asia

Hurricane Katrina was the largest crisis to hit the United States last year. But we should remember that the Kyrgyz word for crisis also means opportunity.

Actually AsiaPundit has no idea what the Kyrgyz word for crisis is, but thanks to Democracy in Central Asia, AsiaPundit discovers that  to Kyrgyzstan officials did sense an opportunity.:

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of homes, the good people of Kyrgyzstan saw a business opportunity. So the embassy rented a booth at the Washington Convention Center and got Kyrgyz officials on the program as speakers and hosts of the Homeland and Global Security Summit. This allowed the embassy to erect a yurt, the traditional nomadic tent of Central Asia, and offer it as a housing solution for the Gulf Coast.

"After Katrina, people really need some temporary houses," explained the Kyrgyz Embassy’s Saltanat Tashmatova, at the front door of the yurt. A brochure says the 14-foot-high structure, made from sheep’s wool and "cool in summer," sells for $10,000 — but the floor model can be had for $7,000. Any sales yet? "We just started," Tashmatova said with a shrug.

Picture via this site, where you can buy an authentic Mongolian yurt.

How comfortable would a North American find yurt life? Ask Lars.:

Think of it as a high tech Mongolian teepee. I live in a yurt on an organic farm in the Willamette Valley in Western Oregon. I have lived here since the Fall of 1995. The cabin I had been living in was crumbling and in imminent danger of sliding into the river. I didn’t want to move away from the farm so I needed to provide myself with some temporary living space. After some research, I discovered yurts. I had no idea that the temporary living space would be so wonderful that I would make it permanent.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, Kyrgyzstan, mongolia

Once again, AsiaPundit would like to remind readers that the people of Northeast Asia are conservative and traditional. Nothing illustrates this better than the ancient religious festivals still celebrated in Japan.:

… the male sexual organ, is celebrated in Japan’s Kanamara Festival as a symbol of fertility. To us Westerners, this sounds pretty strange, since we’ve all been brought up to keep our sexuality in our pants and in the back of our minds. The Japanese, it seems, are much more liberal about it. The Kanamara Festival is most famous for a giant consecrated shrine of a penis, which is carried through the town

For more follow the above link or see Masa Mania,

And for those who have an aversion to the penis, you can check out the Riding Sun’s Boobs.

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

The World Bank has completed a study of Chinese outward foreign direct investment, surveying Chinese 132 firms on their investment plans and opinions on issues relating to foreign investment at home and abroad.

A power point presentation of the study is here.

Among the questions asked was whether firms found it easier or more difficult to do business in various foreign locations. Not surprisingly, most respondents found business conditions easier in the West and all respondents found the North Korea the most difficult environment for business.

AsiaPundit does not find it surprising that Chinese businesses find the Middle East the second-worst location for investment. While China hands may find this hard to believe, as a former resident of the region who now lives in China, AP will attest that Arab bureaucracies are even more unbearable than what is found in heavily bureaucratized China.

(via the PSD Blog)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, korea, middle east, north korea, northeast asia

The Dark Lord of the Sith is not faring well in Asia, getting bested twice by Tokyo’s Finest.

Part one:

Part two:

While in Malaysia Darth becomes a towel rack.:

Once I was the most feared man in the Galactic Empire.
I ruled the Imperial Army with an iron fist.
I was an evil and ruthless war criminal.
A mass murderer.

Now, I’m nothing more than a towel holder.

And Darth Made-in-China is long gone, after being sold on December 22.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, malaysia, northeast asia, darth, southeast asia

AsiaPundit is pleased to report that central planning is alive and well in the new ‘wired’ China. Via 活龙行天下, a summary of key work areas of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).:

Overall requirements: Guided by the Deng Xiaoping theory and the important thoughts of Three Represents, the spirits of the Sixteenth National Congress of the Party, the 5th Session of the Central Committee of the Party and the Central Economic Working Conference; to implement the Concept of Scientific Development, make China a telecom and electronic giant, focus on structural adjustments and strategic transformation, improve the quality and efficiency of development, center on technological innovations and strengthen the core competitiveness of the information industry; to transform the functions of the government, create a good environment for the development of the industry; to apply information technology (IT), strengthen the IT promotion and application, to base on the people-first principle, provide good products and services to the public and promote the sustained, rapid, coordinated and healthy development of the information industry.

Much more below the jump, if you can tolerate it.

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

(more…)

CCTV, the Chinese state-owned broadcaster, has launched a new website in collaboration with Rupert Murdoch’s FOX news.:

CCTV International and CCTV.com formally launched an updated and revamped English website on Tuesday, at English.cctv.com. The newly designed website is expected to better serve Internet surfers, and also to help boost viewing figures for CCTV International’s TV programs.

Three partners are jointly announcing the launch of CCTV International’s new website. Collaborating with Fox Cable network and CCTV.COM, CCTV International hopes joint efforts will strengthen its image among current and potential viewers. And also to increase viewers for TV programs on CCTV International — through the www.cctv.com website…

…FOX Cable Networks offered help with the design of the new web-page. The company says this is only the beginning of cooperation between Fox and CCTV International. Fox says the new webpage provides a source for the world to get to know about China.

Perhaps all of those who were damning Google for the censored China site will now damn FOX for assisting CCTV, which has much more aggressive censorship policies than any US search engine.

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

Via bhojman’s Meanderings, a Myanmar state-owned newspaper has accused a US journalism education program of poisioning “young Myanmar brains.”

A US government centre in Burma is spreading “poison” among local reporters through its English for Journalism courses, a state-owned newspaper said today.

The Kyemon newspaper said apart from teaching journalistic ethics and writing, foreign instructors at the American Centre in Burma, known as Myanmar by its military rulers, have gathered information about the country’s education, health and social conditions from the students.

“The ‘English for Journalism’ course attended by young journalists from various Myanmar media groups is like poison, because the course is nothing but sugar-coated bitter medicine,” the newspaper wrote.

The article went on to indicate that the centre, through courses like the one on journalism, was spreading American propaganda and harming “young Myanmar brains”.

Thomas Pierce, who heads the centre, declined immediate comment since he had not read the article.

“We are working to improve journalism in Burma, working with journalists to both improve their English and reporting skill,” he said.

The centre, operated by the US Embassy in Yangon, offers educational courses, a library, films and other facilities that are open to all Burmese citizens.

AsiaPundit thinks that far more Burmese brains have been damaged by beatings by SPDC thugs or the drugs that the junta helps traffic. Still, he will admit that journalism school can cause brain damage.

Technorati Tags: asia, burma, censorship, corruption, east asia, myammar, southeast asia

Via the not-quite-worksafe Mango Sauce, a clear violation of intellectual property on a sign touted as the funniest in Pattaya.:

In Pattaya’s Soi Bukhao district, the FCUK Inn promises drinkers more than just a cold beer and a hand of cards. Before calling in, however, bridge enthusiasts might organise a couple of rubbers first.

French Connection Group Plc surely would object to their brand being used for this. But given that French Connection UK’s (FCUK) latest advertising campaign involves two models tearing each other’s clothing off in a lesbian cat fight, they can hardly say that the brand is being debased.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, thailand, puppy, southeast asia

According to the Mercer 2006 study on quality of living for expatriates, AsiaPundit’s current home is the most livable city in China Mainland China. Although it falls far behind his former home of Singapore.:

Singapore overtakes Tokyo as the top Asian city, moving into 34th position. Despite Singapore’s gain, Japan remains the strongest Asian country with the next eight Asian cities based there. Hong Kong (68th) breaks that run, and China’s top city is Shanghai (103rd), falling one place. In India, the top cities are Mumbai and New Delhi (both 150th). Indian city rankings are improving slowly due to India’s improving political relationships with other countries. Also, local authorities in India are feeling pressure from multinationals who want to locate there to improve quality of living standards.

The survey ranks standards of living based on measures including personal safety and security, health issues, cleanliness and pollution, and transportation - all areas that AP will admit are much better in the Lion City.

For that matter, Singapore should beat most (if not all) of the cities in the top-10 were those the only measures (easily trumping number three Vancouver on cleanliness, transportation and security).

That said, Shanghai’s skyline easily trumps Singapore’s.:

The city claims the third best skyline in the world, while Singapore comes in sixth. However, Shanghai once again is rightfully beaten by Hong Kong.

(Via IZ)

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