Disturbing.:

Apparently some people don’t want Playboy coming to Jakarta. And this fellow is eating a Playboy DVD.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, east asia, media, southeast asia

The permalink-unfriendly Jakarta Post reports that the Singaporean woman found guilty of negligence in her maid’s death was sentenced to a mere two weeks for the crime. The judge said, “The court will not condone a disregard for the safety of domestic helpers,”:

SINGAPORE (AP): A Singapore court jailed a woman for two weeks for negligence after she ordered her Indonesian maid onto the ledge of an eighth-floor condominium from where she fell to her death, court documents showed.

A district judge said Ngu Mei Mei, 37, who admitted one count of negligence imperiling the life of her maid, Yanti, 22, was sentenced to jail to show that the court would not excuse any thoughtless conduct by employers that placed their maids’ livesin jeopardy.

“The court will not condone a disregard for the safety of domestic helpers,” District Judge Thian Yee Sze wrote in her decision, delivered Tuesday.

“Many of them are very young and come from rural areas, and have never worked in urban areas and high-rise buildings. Hence, they are less aware of the potential dangers,” Thian said.

“It must be remembered that to a foreign domestic helper who is often all alone in Singapore, the employer is not only her superior, whose orders she has to obey, but also her guardian and protector,” the judge wrote.

The woman could have received a maximum sentence of three months in jail, a S$250 (US$150) fine or both. As AsiaPundit said here before, measuring the value of a human life is a tricky business. Although most states and religions regard all men as equals, legal systems generally when considering compensation for wrongful death will look at such things as life expectancy; expected earnings, inflation and a range of other factors.

But beyond that, deterrence has to be considered. For a country as wealthy as Singapore a S$250 for for killing a maid is hardly a deterrent. That can typically just cover dinner and a night at the pub.

Two weeks in jail is not much better. If Singapore judges were not already so well paid, AsiaPundit would mail the sentencing judge a quarter so he could buy himself a clue.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, singapore, southeast asia

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

Playboy is coming to Indonesia, Todd Crowell asks “where’s the outrage?” Yes, there is a from local Muslim groups, but shouldn’t us free-speech type’s be outraged that Playboy is compromising its values.:

..the Indonesian edition will not be the same Playboy we know and love in the U.S. The local publisher and the American parent have promised that Playboy Indonesia will “respect local values” — meaning no photographs of naked women. Or, as local promoter Avianto Nugroho says, “the contents will be suitable for whatever is acceptable in Indonesia.”

So here we have another large American company with world-wide brand recognition that wants to do business in a large Asian country that is censoring itself. Except that Playboy’s actions are more in the nature of preemptive self-censorship since there are no specific laws that would prevent the unadulterated Playboy from publishing in Indonesia.

The Indonesian criminal code does not clearly define what constitutes pornography. Parliament is working fix that now, but, like in other countries, the anti-porn bill is running into difficulties in defining what exactly is decent and what is indecent.

Playboy’s self-censorship hasn’t drawn the same censure that Google received for allowing Chinese authorities to block access to certain politically sensitive terms on its new Chinese-language search engine. After all, the Chinese want to block out such lofty subjects as “democracy” or references to the “Tiananmen massacre.”

All Playboy plans to censor are boobs.

But it might be argued that boobs are as central to Playboy’s products as “information” in the broadest sense is to Google’s business.

(image stolen from here.)

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, east asia, indonesia, media, playboy, southeast asia

Tiara Lestari, the Indonesian woman who set off a storm of controversy by appearing in a European edition of Playboy, has said that she will no longer be doing nude photos. She also offers her opinion on Playboy launching an Indonesian edition.:

I appeared on the cover of Playboy, Spain  edition last August. I think everyone and their mothers know about that if you live in Indonesia . Lets just get that fact out in the open. Now, I have this blog for a reason and one of them is to be a medium for my voice for matters that concern me most. This is one of those moments.

I have been asked by a large number of Indonesian media about two things:

1. How do you feel about Playboy being published in Indonesia ?

2. How do you feel about potentially appearing as the first cover of Playboy Indonesia ?

I respect Playboy as an internationally known publication. Everyone from legendary Marilyn Monroe to Pamela Anderson to Madonna to Cindy Crawford have benefited from their professional relationships with the magazine. I have made a personal decision as a model to also follow that route last year. This decision certainly wasn’t popular in my own country. Heck, it was a huge disappointment for my parents too. I regret that part of it. For that, I am sorry.

Technorati Tags: asia, media, indonesia, southeast asia

IndCoup notes that Playboy is launching an Indonesian edition, enraging the country’s Islamist parties. IndCoup, however, argues that the outrage is not based on concerns that the magazine will diminish women.:

In politics, for example, the Muslim factions in Indonesia’s Parliament do everything they can to ensure that women are still seen as inferior to men and are excluded, wherever possible, from the sphere of political decision-making (women occupy just 8 percent of the seats in Indonesia’s Parliament).

Sure Indonesia may have had a female president - Megawati Sukarnoputri – but she was often made a target by the Islamists simply because of her gender (after all, men should never be ruled over by women, should they?)

Actually, I think the Indonesians should take a leaf out of the Swedes’ book given that women make up around 50 percent of Parliament members in Sweden. And this in a country where very permissive attitudes toward pornography are common. Coincidence? I think not…

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, playboy, southeast asia

Via the Committee to Protect Bloggers:

Spirit of America has launched the BlogSafer wiki, available at http://www.blogsafer.org. BlogSafer contains a series of guides on how to blog under difficult conditions in countries that discourage free speech.

LOS ANGELES, California - January 7, 2006 – Spirit of America’s BlogSafer wiki hosts a series of targeted guides to anonymous blogging, each of which outline steps a blogger in a repressive regime can take, and tools to use, to avoid identification and arrest. These range from common sense actions such as not providing identifying details on a blog to the technical, such as the use of proxy servers.

“A repressive regime trying to still free speech first goes after and shuts down independent print and broadcast media,” said Curt Hopkins, project director of Spirit of America’s Anonymous Blogging Campaign. “Once that is done, it turns its attentions to online news sites. As these outlets disappear, dissent migrates to blogs, which are increasing geometrically in number and are simple to set up and operate.”

In past several years at least 30 people have been arrested, many of whom have been tortured, for criticizing their governments. This trend is likely to increase in the coming year.

The five guides that are currently on the wiki serve bloggers in the following countries:

* Iran (in Persian)

* China (Chinese)

* Saudi Arabia (in Arabic—also useful for other Arabic-speaking regimes such as Bahrain, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia)

* Malaysia (in English—also applicable to neighboring Indonesia and Singapore)

* Zimbabwe (in English—applicable to English-speaking Africans as well as aid workers)

Technorati Tags: asia, blogs, censorship, china, east asia, malaysia, northeast asia, singappore, southeast asia

AsiaPundit still cannot find humor in this year’s natural disasters*, especially as the anniversary of the tsunami was only days ago. Nevertheless, here are the Asia-related items from the Onion’s 2005 top-10 stories:

#2 Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Kashmir Earthquake Battle for Natural Disasty Award

LOS ANGELES—In a night destined to provide "major upsets in the natural order," three of the biggest stars of the weather, pestilence or general phenomenon community will battle it out Friday for the title of Best Disaster of 2005. "Even though Katrina’s casualty count wasn’t as high as the South Asian tsunami, it possibly spelled the demise of an entire American city," said Rolling Stone writer and cultural commentator Touré. "And since it appears that the Kashmir earthquake’s strategy of playing to critics late in the season backfired, it looks like the hurricane definitely has the edge to win the Disasty." Touré added that Kashmir’s earthquake had a virtual lock on the Lifetaking Achievement Award.

# 4 North Korea Nukes Self in Desperate Plea for Attention:

PYONGYANG—Frustrated that its megalomaniacal outbursts no longer inspire fear and panic in the international community, the nation of North Korea detonated all six of its nuclear warheads early Thursday morning, killing 32 million in what international observers are calling "a pathetic bid for attention."

"This is very typical and melodramatic," South Korean President Roo Moo-hyun said yesterday. "North Korea has been ‘acting out’ for years—decorating its country with provocative posters, never leaving its borders, and getting aggressive with those closest to it. It has been this way ever since it was grounded from the national stage." UN officials are advising nations who feel self-destructive to speak to allies or counselors.

*AsiaPundit, obviously a sick man, can still find humor in fictional democide and North Korean nuclear activities.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, india, north korea, northeast asia, pakistan, south korea

One year ago today roughly a quarter of a million lives were washed away:

Sculptures are displayed on Patong beach during a ceremony to mark the one year anniversary of the tsunami in Phuket southern of Thailand. (AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Photo and text via Thai Blogs:

DesiPundit notes the role blogs played in putting out information and aiding in fundraising and relief and requests that the effort be repeated:

The blogosphere played an important part in disseminating information, collating resources, and offering avenues for fund raising. The team that brought you the SEA-EAT blog has now joined forces and rebanded to form the World Wide Help blog [disclaimer: I am also one of the contributors]. On the dark anniversary of the tsunami tragedy, we refocus the need to keep the relief work going and keeping hope alive for those who are still waiting for our help.

The Worldwide Help Blog has sent out a call for observing the Tsunami Remembrance Week from December 26th-January 1st. Write about it on your blogs. List your favorite charities or better still, make that last year-end donation. Use the Technorati tag - Disaster Remembrance Week [HTML code:
rel=”tag” rel=”tag”>Disaster Remembrance Week]

More at IndianWriting, Jakartass, Brand New Malaysian,

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, india, indonesia, malaysia, puppy, singapore, south asia, southeast asia, sri lanka, thailand

Merry Christmas from Mr and Mrs AsiaPundit. There will be reduced posting for the holiday season, but AP is cheered that he can present an assortment of good Christmas news from the region:

Nothing blew up in Indonesia:

Good news from Indonesia tonight. Despite serious warnings of terrorist attacks against Christian churches — and perhaps due to a general heightened vigilance, along with robust security measures that included participation of many Muslim social organisations — the many Christmas Eve services and Masses have taken place without reports of trouble. This is an extremely important good sign for the country. If there was ever an occasion for that old aphorism, "No news is good news," tonight was the night.

(UPDATE: Nothing blew up thanks, in part, to Santa:

Santa isn’t just filling stockings in Indonesia. He’s also checking
packages for bombs in the world’s most populous Muslim nation where
authorities are gearing up to prevent possible militant attacks.

More than two dozen hotel security men dressed like Santa Claus in red
outfits with white trims used metal detectors to inspect cars entering
a five-star hotel in the heart of Jakarta, where malls and hotels are
all dressed up for Christmas.)

 

From Japan, Santa’s ability to deliver gifts to billions is explained - he is assisted by time-travelling cat Doraemon:

China’s environmental record is improving. In Shanghai, Christmas decorations will be recycled for use in traditional medicines:

Shanghaiist assumes that this “tree,” covered not with the traditional pine needles, but with antlers torn from the still-warm skulls of disobedient reindeer, is a stark reminder: Santa Claus ain’t nuthing ta f’ wit.

In South Korea, despite Dr Hwang’s fall from grace, advances in human cloning do seem to have been made:

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, korea, northeast asia, indonesia, south korea, southeast asia

Rajan has come upon a preliminary draft of the proposed constitution for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean):

7. Freedom of movement of people and goods shall be guaranteed except

a) When there is a national monopoly or well-connected corporation like Proton and PT Tri Polyta that needs to be protected.

b) When there is a pointless, wasteful, inefficient national industry that needs to be protected

c) For Jews…err, Israelis, in Malaysia and Indonesia.

d) For Filipinos and Indonesians going to Malaysia and Singapore, where in Malaysia they shall be placed in humiliating, delapidated camps where their rights shall not be protected.

e) To Acheh, Papua or occasionally, parts of the Spice Islands in Indonesia, the mountains of Vietnam, most states of Myanmar and the entirety of Laos, God-forbid any reporter sees anything there.

Technorati Tags: asia, asean

AsiaPundit doesn’t have much sympathy for those who use - and especially those who smuggle - drugs into Southeast Asia. While I have libertarian leanings and favor legalization of most drugs, I have little respect for those who lack the common sense to realize that Southeast Asia is not a good place to be caught with illicit narcotics.

Unless, of course, one of your partying pals in the son of Indonesia’s economics minister.:

The title of this post just about says it all. A young Australian model is arrested in Bali holding two tabs of ecstasy. She is busted going to a party south of Kuta at some theme park centered around giant Garudas. She is spotted in a truck painted with the logo of the Nirwana Bali Resort. Among the passengers is the son of the Minister of Economics with the Indonesian government. He is a major real estate developer in Indonesia and among the important investors of the Nirwana Resort, located right in front of a holy temple. One of Bali’s most controversial real estate developments. Ever.

So. We have Michelle the Australian model with two tabs of ecstasy, the son of the important government bigwig from Jakarta, the truck from fancy property owned by bigwig. She keeps her mouth shut. Her attorney is extremely diplomatic. A trial is held. Michelle is acquitted and can return home to Australia.

What part of this picture are we missing?

IndCoup has a further and not quite worksafe, commentary on the subject.:

Surprise surprise. Aussie model Michelle Leslie’s suffering is over.

Although she was found guilty on Friday of using a prohibited psychotropic drug (ecstasy), those kind judges in Bali unsurprisingly opted to give her only a three-month sentence, which considering that she was arrested almost exactly three months ago, means that she’s now a free woman.

Michelle Leslie won’t have to dig too deeply into her pockets either. Although the judges had recently fined an Indonesian dude over US$1,000 for a similar drugs offence, they only fined Michelle the princely sum of 1,000 rupiah (about 10 cents!!!). How very considerate of them: it really seems that Michelle’s considerable charms won them over in the end!!!

Summing up the court’s verdict, Judge I Gusti Ngurah Astawa said that Michelle was given a light sentence because she had been “honest, polite and remorseful during trial”.

“The defendant is still young and has no prior criminal record, has been well behaved and conveyed her regret in front of court,” he explained.

Whether Michelle will keep her mouth shut after returning to Oz, or will cave to checkbook journalism, remains to be seen. A safer wager would be on whether the lingerie model will shed the hijab she donned for the trial.

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

Friskodude pulls together a collection of light-hearted stereotype jokes. You know you’re an (ethnicity/nationality) when…

You Know You’re Indonesian When…

Your stomach growls when you don’t eat rice for a day.

You believe kecap ABC could turn bad cooking to gourmet food.

You talk during a movie.

You eat fried rice in the morning.

You prefer Versace or Moschino jeans over Gap or Levi’s.

You don’t think Jim Carrey is funny.

You Know You’re Chinese When:

You unwrap Christmas gifts very carefully, so you can save and reuse the wrapping (and especially those bows) next year.

You only buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50% off.

When there is a sale on toilet paper, you buy 100 rolls and store them in your closet or in the bedroom of an adult child who has moved out.

You have a vinyl table cloth on your kitchen table.

Your stove is covered with aluminum foil.

You use the dishwasher as a dish rack.

You Know You’re Malaysian When…

You complain about the quality of the pirated DVD you just purchased. "What, RM10 for DVD5?! Aiyah, boss … sound no good, cheaperlah …"

You’re willing to consume sambal petai and durian and gladly suffer the bloating and wind-breaking incidents.

You’re exceedingly polite to the Mat Sallehs but you slag your own kind. "Hello, sir. Why don’t you sit here, it?s got the best view of the city skyline." But, "Aunty-ah, your table is over there next to the kitchen."

You order Maggi goreng and fried chicken, complain about how oily the food is, and then proceed to finish it anyway.

Also see you know you’re a Korean, Japanese and Indian when…

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, indonesia, japan, malaysia, northeast asia, singapore, southeast asia

Via the Committee to Bloggers, Spirit of America is now vetting its anonymous blogging guides and is welcoming public comment. Also needed are Chinese and other translators.:

Spirit of America’s Anonymous Blogging Campaign has opened up their five anonymous blogging guides to public comment. If you are a blogger in one of the following areas, a specialist in the countries involved, or just a clear-thinking blogger, the ABC asks that you take a look and leave a comment if there is something you believe needs to be changed, added, subtracted or expanded upon.

The drafts are in English. The ABC has secured translation help for the Arabic document; the Malaysian and Zimbabwean will remain in English. They are still seeking Chinese and Persian translators.

Here are the guides:

China (with possible application for Chinese-speaking bloggers in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia)

Iran

Saudi Arabia (with possible application for bloggers in Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arabic-speaking world)

Malaysia (with possible application for bloggers in Singapore and Indonesia)

Zimbabwe (with possible application for English-speaking bloggers elsewhere in Africa)

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, china, east asia, indonesia, malaysia, media, northeast asia, singapore

Good news, of sorts, the number of piracy attacks declined in the first three quarters.

Pirate attacks drop worldwide, Indonesian waters still the most dangerous

(AFP) - Pirate attacks worldwide dropped 18 percent in the first nine months of this year to 205 but Indonesian waters remained the most dangerous and accounted for nearly one third of the total, a watchdog body said Tuesday.

There were 61 attacks in Indonesian waters, the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said in a statement.

“Violence and intimidation of crew continues to be the hallmark of these attacks (worldwide), with many of the pirates armed with guns and knives,” it said.

The IMB said that during the period, 259 seafarers were taken hostage worldwide, 10 kidnapped for longer periods, 19 were assaulted and 12 remained missing. There were 251 pirate attacks during the corresponding period last year.

“In some incidents pirates operated in large groups and attacked vessels from different directions at the same time,” it said.

The nugget of dark reality to this is that the drop in pirate attacks was partly caused by the devastation caused by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.:

The notorious Malacca Strait between Indonesia and Malaysia — used by some 50,000 ships a year carrying a third of world trade — saw a sharp drop in attacks to 10 from 25 in the same period in 2004.

The IMB said that with the increase in maritime patrols by Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore the number of attacks had declined.

“After the tsumani struck on December 26, 2004, there were no incidents in the Malacca Strait for the next two months. However, since the end of February 2005, 10 attacks have occurred,” it said.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, indonesia, malaysia, puppy

In a move that should make Peta happy, Thailand is cracking down on cock fighting. But it’s not because of animal rights issues. No, the government has discovered that the resilient fighting machines have a higher-risk of being bird-flu carriers,:

The government has imposed strict measures to try to curb the spread of bird flu, including restricting movements of fighting cocks and eliminating a traditional way of raising ducks by moving large flocks around.

Fighting cocks and ducks were more resilient to the virus than farmed chickens and could pass on the disease without showing symptoms, Yukol said.

The government had set a March, 2005 deadline for halting the large-scale movement of 3,700 flocks of ducks that owners moved around to new feeding grounds, but extended it to December after owners protested and might extend it again, officials said.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Malaysia, the government is having difficulty in preventing the trafficking of the fighting cocks of Indonesia. (Mainichi Daily via H5N1):

Malaysian villagers on Borneo island are smuggling pet birds and fighting cocks from neighboring Indonesia, despite a government ban meant to keep the country free of bird flu, a news report said Wednesday.

Veterinary authorities in Malaysia’s eastern Sarawak state — which shares an extensive land border with Indonesia’s Kalimantan province — will cull smuggled birds and any local poultry that had contact with them, Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister George Chan told The Star newspaper.

“Pet birds and fighting cocks are being smuggled across the border at illegal entry points,” Chan said. “We have already given a lot of advice to the people near the border, but the dangers of disregarding the ban do not seem to matter to some of them.”

Images stolen from a great photo essay site of a cock fight in Uzbekistan, discovered via (warning, make sure you have safe search on when searching for “cock fight” on Google images).

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, malaysia, bird flu, H5N1, south korea, thailand

Terrorists have struck again on the Indonesian tourist island paradise of Bali. Almost three years to the day the Islamic terrorists bombed Bali night clubs in 2002 the terrorists now struck a popular shopping and dining area on the island:

The blasts struck the seaside area of Jimbaran Bay and the bar and shopping hub of Kuta, 30 kilometers (19 miles) away at about 8 p.m. Saturday night (8 a.m. ET).

In addition to the 26 fatalities, hospital officials said 102 people were wounded. One of those who died was a 16-year-old Australian boy, officials said, while South Koreans, Americans, Japanese and Britons were among those wounded.

It is not official yet that this was an attack carried out by Islamic terrorists yet, but it is more than likely an operation carried out by the notorious Indonesian Islamic terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah:

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned Saturday’s bombings as an act of terrorism. There were no claims of responsibility.

But terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna told CNN that the attacks had the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiyah — a Southeast Asian terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda.

"There is no other group with this level of capability," he said.

The 2002 bombings were blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah.

So why are the terrorists striking Bali? Bali is a mainly Hindu enclave in the world’s most populous Muslim country. The terrorists have no qualms killing Hindus and foreign tourists on the island. Plus terrorism on Bali dries up one of the main sources of tourist income for the Indonesian government. Less money the government has in it’s coffers means less money to keep a stable democratic government functioning.  The terrorists cannot stand 180 million Muslims living under a democratic government.

However, not everyone thinks that the attacks may have been carried out by Islamic militants. This from Chinese Xinhua News Agency:

Saturday night’s bomb blasts in Bali could have link with fuel oil price hikes which were felt by the people as a very heavy burden, the official news agency Antara quoted a political observer as saying.

"I think groups who are unsatisfied with the fuel oil price hike have been behind the explosions, not those who want to shift attention on fuel oil issues," Professor Budiatna, a political observer at the University of Indonesia, said here on Saturday night.

According to Budiatna, the unsatisfied groups thought protests in the form of demonstrations were no longer effective because the government paid no attention to it.
(…)

"They pressured (the government) by resorting to terrors. Their message is to lower the fuel oil price or else the terror acts will continue," the observer added.

Sounds pretty outrageous to me to resort to terrorism because of fuel prices. Why Xinhua would even give this theory credence is beyond me. However, it is going to be interesting to see if the Indonesian government is going to take the strong measures necessary to crack down on the Islamic militants within Indonesia. So far they have been using the kid gloves on them hoping they would just go away. It is clear now that the terrorists will not go away and will continue to strike within Indonesia to undermine and weaken the democratic government of the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

ESWN makes a good argument in defense of Yahoo!’s co-operation with Chinese state security, and says he expects stone silence to his post. Because of that, it gets top of the page in today’s roundup.:

The police came quickly, assessed the situation
and decided that there was a chance of a bomb.  Hong Kong is one place that
takes possible explosives very seriously on account of the 1967
disturbances.  All pedestrian and vehicular traffic along Nathan Road was
stopped, and all shoppers and workers were evacuated.  This led to massive
traffic backups in one of the busiest part of the city.  At around 930pm, the
explosive disposal squad was in place to defuse the bomb.  A robot was sent
up and used a water gun to break open the box.  Fortunately, there was no
bomb inside, just two bricks.
The investigators then looked at the piece of
cardboard.  It read like a note from a disgruntled ex-employee of
PCCW.  There was an email address: .
Based on this and other information (note: there was a web page URL that is
blurred out in the magazine photo), the man was arrested.  He has been
tried and found guilty of threatening behavior.  The judge said: "In
the 21st century of our times, there are numerious incidents of violence,
attacks and bombing in the world.  To make the people of Hong Kong live in
a state of constant fear is a serious crime."  The man has not yet
been sentenced. . .
If several hundred requests come into Yahoo!
every day, how would they know which is which?  As Jerry Yang said,
"We do not know why they want that information.  We’re not told what
they look for."  So in order to tell which is which, Yahoo! will have
an in-house Chief Privacy Officer, who will demand the law enforcement agency to
produce the full evidence, explain the purpose of the inquiry and then he/she
will play God/Supreme Court Justice and render a decision in his/her infinite
wisdom.  Routinely, this CPO will have to make several hundred potentially
life-and-death decisions every day.  Now who wants that Chief Privacy
Officer job, with all the pressures and the legal and moral liabilities?. . .
In the case of Shi Tao, the law enforcement
will simply say the subject is suspected of having sent a state secret document
overseas via the Yahoo! email account on a specific date.  There is no
personal identification because the purpose of the request for the IP
information was precisely to detect the unknown subject.  Would you think
that the CPO will then demand to read the state secret document before deciding?
Is the CPO a good judge?  And does the CPO know how to deal with a genuine
national secret (such as the date and detailed plans of the invasion of Taiwan)?
I submit to you that Option 3 is not a good idea and corporate employees should
not be making these types of decisions.
As I said before, I expect stone silence to
this post, because the world is enjoying Yahoo!-bashing too much.

We now return to our regularly scheduled Yahoo! bashing.

Essential reading for cyber-dissidents, Reporters Without Borders has issued its guide for bloggers (pdf). Rebecca reviews it here.:

The Handbook for Bloggers is useful for beginners and veteran
bloggers alike. It starts out with several introductory chapters,
explaining how blogs differ from other kinds of websites, blogging
terminology, how to select a blogging tool and web-host, and how to get
started.  The middle chapters focus on tips that even veteran bloggers
will find useful. Journalist, blogger and We the Media author Dan GillmorMark Glaser
offers tips on how to "make your blog shine." I learned a lot from the
chapter on how to get your blog picked up by search engines, written by
internet consultant Olivier Andrieu.

A while back, I posted an Atanu Dey item praising Singapore over India. Today, via Amit Varma, an item that argues Singapore’s northern neighbor also has some lessons for India.:

My wife and I are in Malaysia now on a short term assignment for our
company, and every time we step out of our house in Penang, we feel the
amazing effects of a liberal economic policy. This small, densely
populated island off the coast of Malaysia (Penang) is a big
electronics manufacturing base (thanks to a Free Trade Zone, and a port
that was formerly duty free) and it is easy to see what this has done
to the local economy.
There is a booming free-spending middle
class, and almost no poverty. Everyone who wants to work seems to be
able to find a job, and they are doing well enough to import labor from
Indonesia for low-paying jobs. There are signs of development
everywhere - new roads, new bridges, new high-rises. And from what I’ve
heard, Penang reflects what is going on around the rest of the country.
Not
to say Malaysia doesn’t have its problems, but economically, they seem
to have found the secret to growth. We see all this, and naturally, the
next thing we think is, "When will this happen to India?"
We are
doing it backwards, it seems - Malaysia had manufacturing move over
here first, and that brought in a support engineering force which
slowly grew into a full fledged "high-tech economy." We got some
"low-tech" engineering activities first, and are hoping for the trickle
down from this to help our economy in other areas.

Far Outliers links to a study on the divergence of opinions in China and Canada on separatism.:

Whereas Canada has acclimatised to living next to its superpower
neighbour, absorbed the values of a virtual state and discarded the
traditional expectations of the importance of territory, China is a
rising power with an acute sense of grievance from the way it has been
treated historically, or at least the way it perceives it has been
treated. This strong inferiority complex has stimulated an intense
desire to do something about what many Chinese believe is their
misfortune, to occupy an international position that conforms to
traditional power politics and emphasises the value of territory.
Canada’s attitude is reinforced by its commitment to democracy and
interdependence, and to the granting of the wishes of the people of
Quebec, whatever they may be. The Chinese, on the contrary, lacking
both a commitment to democracy and self-determination or the status of
a developed state, view Taiwan not as an area containing a population
that should have some say in how they are governed, but as a
geopolitical object to be manipulated to maximise the glories of a
greater China.

Richard brings a troubling tale from the NY Times on police brutality and injustice in China.:

For three days and three nights, the police wrenched Qin Yanhong’s arms
high above his back, jammed his knees into a sharp metal frame, and
kicked his gut whenever he fell asleep. The pain was so intense that he
watched sweat pour off his face and form puddles on the floor.
On the fourth day, he broke down. "What color were her pants?" they
demanded. "Black," he gasped, and felt a whack on the back of his head.
"Red," he cried, and got another punch. "Blue," he ventured. The
beating stopped.
This is how Mr. Qin, a 35-year-old steel mill worker in Henan
Province in central China, recalled groping in the darkness of a
interrogation room to deduce the "correct" details of a rape and
murder, end his torture and give the police the confession they
required to close a nettlesome case.
On the strength of his coerced confession alone, prosecutors
indicted Mr. Qin. A panel of judges then convicted him and sentenced
him to death. He is alive today only because of a rare twist
of fate that proved his innocence and forced the authorities to let him
go, though not before a final push to have him executed anyway.

In light of the bird flu scare in neighboring Indonesia (which authorities there are calling an epidemic) Malaysia is cracking down on chicken smugglers (surely there are more lucrative illegal trades).:

I mean real chickens, the ones we have on our table for dinner. Yes,
it seems Malaysia actually has a shortage of chickens, hence a window
of opportunity opens itself for more dubious characters to actually
make a living smuggling them from neighbouring countries.
Now I know why a friend of mine who was an accountant quit his job
to open a chicken farm. The ‘rumour’ that McDonalds Malaysia created
quite a few ‘chicken’ millionaires might be true then.
From a Reuters report,

Malaysia said on Wednesday it was boosting precautions
against bird flu, and considering fines or jail terms for smugglers of
poultry from neighbours such as Indonesia, now battling the disease.

Seven-years to the day following his jailing, as Lone notes, former Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim announced he plans to sue former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for defamation.:

Former Malaysian deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim said Tuesday he will
launch a lawsuit against one-time prime minister Mahathir Mohamad for
accusing him of being a homosexual.
Mahathir said earlier this
month that he was forced to sack Anwar in 1998 to prevent mainly-Muslim
Malaysia from having a homosexual leader. Anwar was jailed for sodomy
after his sacking but the conviction was overturned last year.
"I
cannot have a person who is like that in my cabinet who may succeed and
become the prime minister. Imagine having a gay prime minister. Nobody
would be safe," Mahathir told reporters.
Anwar said he was
"shocked" to hear of Mahathir’s "defamatory" remarks, particularly
after a court last month awarded him 1.2 million dollars in damages
over a book that aired the sodomy allegations.
"I will not
allow this lie and slander to continue. Thus I have instructed my
counsel to initiative legal action against Tun (honorific) Mahathir,"
he said in a statement.

Lucia Lai notes that some concerns are being voiced over Dr M being allowed to participate in a human rights conference.:

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) marked its 6th
anniversary and Human Rights Day in Malaysia recently by holding a
hypocrisy party in the capital city, with former premier Dr Mahathir
Mohamad giving the opening address.
A group of 30
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had initially written an open
letter to Suhakam urging it to "close the door" on Dr M for a simple
reason that he had committed a host of "human wrongs" with regard to
human rights at home.
They had provided Suhakam a list of human
rights abuses in Bolehland by Dr M and pointed out that it would be
wrong to invite "a leader who perpetrated extensive human rights
violations" during his 22-year political reign."

AsiaPundit has earlier noted South Korean concerns about how Google Earth allows users to view the South Korean presidential compound and military bases, Pyong’yang, and the secretive Communist Party of China compound of Zhongnanhai. Politics 101 Malaysia is now noting that the spy satellite for the masses is .:
       

After recent my recent comments on Google Earth and ,  the fear continues.
A United Press International report on
Tuesday says terrorists and “rogue state” intelligence agencies could
be making use of free internet satellite images that leave sensitive
British military facilities exposed.
Yet again I ask, will our parliament address this issue during this session?

A Taiwanese in China creates a blog dedicated almost entirely to toilets (seriously).:

This one is the same as last one. Toilet in tibet temple. These walls
are higher than those in 1st picture. So, you can not play cards with
your friends who go to toilet next to you. …
This toilet is more "modern". This one was taken in
a famous tibet temple in yovnan. The small metal spot on the wall is
the button for you to clean your "waste".
Do
you know how to go? Yes, face out. No door, of course. But, in this
toilet, there is water. You can push the button on the wall. Yes, that
very small metal spot in the picture. So, in this kind of toilet, no
shit smell. It’s clearier. There is also another kind of toilet in the
very courtryside place. I did not take pictures. CAUSE, I CAN NOT GO
INTO THAT KIND OF TOILET. Shit everwhere near the door of that kind
toilet. How can I go? It’s really very strange. How do local people go?…
Usually,
this kind of very local & old toilet are in very small viliages.
"public toilet", mm, maybe. So, next time when you have a chance to
drive along a road in small countries in mainland China, remember to
find "public toilet". Then you can see this very localized toilet in
person.

Monty Python needs to reform and do a skit on Taiwan politics, like the WUFI, the People’s Front of Judea are also Splitters/Splittists.:

In case you were wondering the ‘World United Formosans for Independence’ and the ‘Taiwan Defence Alliance’ should not be confused with pro-formal independence political parties like the Taiwan Solidarity Union (which regularly polls between 5-10% in national elections), the ‘Taiwan Independence Party’ (which gained 0.3% of the vote in the last election), the ‘Peasant Party’ (0.4%) or the ‘Taiwan Number One Party’ (didn’t bother standing).

Someone will not be getting another invite to speak at Beijing University.:

Prominent Taiwanese commentator/legislator/raconteur Li Ao delivered one mother of a speech
at Beijing University yesterday. In front of a stunned audience, with
several high-ranking mainland government officials openly squirming on
stage, Li .
He openly criticized China’s censorship, saying that went against
what even Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai would have wanted. Quoting the
Collected Writings of Mao Zedong, he said,
"凡是歷史上發生的東西，都要在歷史上消滅。因此，共產黨總有一天要消滅…，S’s" i.e. "Every
historical figure that has risen has also been destroyed. One day the
Chinese Communist Party will also be destroyed by history…our mission
is to bring about its destruction a little more quickly." He made
not-so-subtle references to the Tiananmen massacre, saying that all
governments are bastards who are willing to open fire on their own
people. He even got in plenty of digs against the
charismatically-challenged former KMT chairman Lian Zhan and the
charismatically-gifted but politcally-challenged current KMT chairman
Ma Yingjiu.

Mr Wang notes Jacob’s run in with the authorities because his number was saved on Singapore Rebel director Martyn See’s cellphone. Mr Wang says the Singapore police really should exercise some restraint, at least for PR reasons.

…please bear in mind that Martyn See is blogging about every stage of
your investigations. This is a highly sensitive case. All kinds of
media organisations, international and local, are closely following
Martyn See’s blog for updates. So Mr Wang advises you to take extra
care in how you conduct your investigations. If you do any silly things
like Haul Anyone and Everyone Who Is Found in Martyn See’s Handphone
Down to the Police Station For Interviews, Martyn will blog about it
and the whole world will read his blog and think the Singapore police
is really acting silly.

Japundit reminds us why Engrish.com should be a regular surf stop.:

American Expat in Southeast Asia ponders America’s moral compass.:

One of the most powerful images from the aftermath of the Southeast
Asian earthquake and tsunamis, was this one from Banda Aceh just days
after the terrible tragedy. The photo above is that of a young man, a
looter, who was beaten into submission and then paraded through the
village square with a placard around his neck that says in Indonesian
"Saya Maling" (I’m a thief).
Without the aid of the police or
militia the photo shows the determination and the will of a altruistic,
righteous and self-disciplined group of people desirous for the return
of law and order to their society. A people who did not require the "whip of tyranny" a people who knew right from wrong.
There
seems to be a troubling confusion here among many of the people here in
Southeast Asia at how many people in the United States could have
exchanged moral clarity for nothing more than feel-good relativism with
regards to the looting that took place in New Orleans.

It’s Blogopoly, the Singapore edition. Go directly to jail! Authorities are looking for a hat-trick! Question: does a minor get tried as an adult when the crime is sedition?:

SINGAPORE : A third person has been charged under the
Sedition Act with promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility between
different races of Singapore.
Gan Huai Shi, 17, faces seven charges of posting racist remarks on his blog site.

Mr Wang offers more, reproducing an item from the unlinkable Straits Times.:

Gan faces seven charges under the Sedition Act for offences he was said to have committed between April 4 and July 16.
He allegedly made four inflammatory comments about Malays and Muslims on the Internet within days of starting his blog.
In one entry on April 4, he allegedly made it clear that he was ‘extremely racist’.
The next day, in two entries within four hours, he was said to have
posted anti-Malay remarks. On April 6, he was allegedly at it again.
From May to July 16, he is accused of making racist comments once a
month on his blog, spouting his hatred for the Malay community.
In one posting, he also allegedly wrote of his violent tendencies
in an entry he described as having ‘explicit and candid content’. He
allegedly wrote how much he wanted to ‘assassinate some important
person with a sniper rifle’.

While the sniper comment would likely fall under some of the zero-tolerance regulations of the post-Columbine US, earning the blogger a possible school expulsion, criminal charges would be unlikely. It seems that expressing racist views in Singapore is almost as dangerous as talking about nepotism.:

FinanceAsia.com, a regional financial magazine based in Hong Kong, recently apologised unreservedly to PM Lee Hsien Loong, SM Goh Chok Tong, MM Lee Kuan Yew, Temasek Holdings and it’s board members.
I’ve
re-produced the two apologies after my post. Furthermore, I’ve
re-produced a 2003 report from the Sydney Morning Herald as well.
All
this came about ‘cos the magazine, in it’s 19 Aug edition on it’s
website, published a report which described Temasek Holdings as "the Lee family trust
This is not the first time such things have happened. Singapore’s leaders have done this to other publications as well.
Let’s
be honest here. People talk about it in their homes, coffeeshops and
stuff. But they don’t say it out in public. It just keeps rolling in
their minds or hearts: The PM is also the Finance Minister. His dad is
MM Lee. The PM’s wife & MM’s daughter-in-law, Ho Ching, is the
executive director and CEO of Temasek Holdings….
You
know, you can sue all you want, get paid for damages and stuff but
people’s perceptions, unspoken aloud as they are, were there even
before any of these publications put it in words. Try to get rid of
that.

Frank Dai looks at China Telecom’s blocking of Skype, PC-to-PC calls are still working fine in Shanghai.

The Hoover Institute’s newest China Leadership review is online.

I don’t believe Michael Moore would even consider using .:

You’ll remember “Fucking USA” singer Park Seong-hwan recently did a song calling Gen. Douglas MacArthur a murderer and accusing him of ordering atrocities during the Korean War.  In the song, he does a bit of narration:

Between
verses two and three, Park adds his own narration. “Seize Seoul. There
are girls and ladies there. For three days, Seoul will be yours — UN
Commander Douglas MacArthur, September 1950.” Park says historical
records confirm that this is an authentic quote by the maverick
commander.

Well, this sparked OhMyNews’ Son Byeong-gwan’s curiousity,
namely as to where the quote came from. So he called up the singer, who
told him he got the quote from a June 25 op-ed by Jang Chang-hun, a
researcher with a center attached to a particular left-wing civic
group. Son then calls up Jang, who says he found the quote via an
Internet search when he was writing a 2002 report, and while he
couldn’t remember the source exactly, he believed it to be Sungkonghoe
University professor Han Hong-gu. Hong, however, denies ever saying
such a thing…
Later on Friday afternoon, however, Son got his answer.
Jang Chang-hun wrote OhMyNews to tell them that he had found the source
of the quote — a North Korean history book that had been translated by
pro-North Korean scholars in Japan in 1972 and retranslated into Korean
in South Korea in 1991. Jang noted, however, that the book did not
attibute sources, either…

North Korea is discovering credit debit culture.:

The . Although deciphering the description of the card on the official North Korean news site. it sounds more like a debit card:

"Six
kinds of currencies can be deposited in a card at a time. With this
card, one can exchange money instantly without going to a money
exchange booth. A card can be shared by several persons… The bank
enjoys popularity among depositors."

"The North Korean Credit Card: Don’t Leave the Country Without It. Actually, Don’t Leave the Country, Full Stop."

ACB has a post on the protests that greeted Hu Jintao on his visit to Canada, noting that Hu was forced to make a face-losing entrance.:

Although protester groups were prevented from
confronting President Hu directly, their high visibility meant that
they were able to attract considerable attention from the world’s press
whic allowed them to serve as an embarrassing reminder to Beijing that
the outside world is aware of China’s many ‘issues’, even if many
mainland Chinese are not.
As an added bonus to protestors, the
presence of a large group of demonstrators outside the Toronto venue of
one of Hu’s scheduled diner engagements, forced the Chinese president
to humble himself by entering through a back door.
For a
Chinese dignitary, being forced to use a back door or service entrance,
in a manner similar to a cleaner or trade person, is considered to be a
highly degrading act and an extreme loss of face.

Oh when will the West get tired of Musharraf? In the latest outrage, the general provides tips on how to be a millionaire through rape.:

General Musharraf’s controversiol comments during an interview with the Washington Post has provoked an outrage.
The issue concerns Mukhtar Mai, and the General has to say:

You
must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a
moneymaking concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and
get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself
raped.

Nitin, Raven and Arzan have something to say.

Amit Varma has .

Indaus is pleased that India is planning the world’s largest building. AsiaPundit agrees that the design is nice enough, but cautions that large erections typically mark the end of a boom rather than an arrival. (on which, the Shanghai Financial Centre is now under construction):

South Korea has been quietly leaving its footprint around Asia and Central Europe for some time. It has been the second-largest investor in Vietnam for a while now, and it doesn’t surprise me to hear that it’s now the biggest foreign investor in India.:

In one whopping megadeal, South Korea has become the
largest foreign investor in Asia’s second emerging giant, India. On
Aug. 31, Korean steelmaker Posco established a local subsidiary in the
eastern Indian state of Orissa, paving the way for a controversial mill
and mining complex that will cost the world’s fifth largest steelmaker
$12 billion and employ some 40,000 workers once it’s fully operational
in 2010.By the numbers, Korea now tops the list of
countries investing in India since New Delhi launched economic reforms
back in 1991—at more than $14 billion. South Korean firms like Hyundai,
LG and SK Group have carved out a notable presence in the country—the
world’s second largest and a potentially huge market for products like
refrigerators, washing machines and television sets….
Importantly, Korean companies have helped India gain
self-confidence as a manufacturing nation and an exporter with the
potential to rival China in certain industrial sectors.

For those interested in Chinese blog development, check out this research blog and ESNW’s excellent contrast on on-line citizen journalism (or lack thereof) in the US, Hong Kong and China.:

Within
the Chinese mainstream media, there are quality workers with good ideas and
opinions.  However, they are often not permitted to articulate those ideas within
the mainstream media.  They can write something up, but it may be killed
for reasons that are either opaque or seemingly wrong.  They do not
necessarily want to yell "Down with XXX" or "Vindicate YYY"
because XXX will not fall down and YYY will not be vindicated on account of some
more sloganeering.  They only want to ask simple questions such as,
"Why are mining disaster victims and their families being kept away from
the press?" or some such.
With the arrival of the Internet, bulletin board
systems proliferated and these mainstream media workers
gravitated to those forums (such as Yannan, Xici Hutong, Tianya Club, etc) in
which they can express their ideas and opinions with like-minded people.
All the while, they continue to work at mainstream media organizations, but
their spare time is for them to use.
This created a unique situation.  In the
United States or Hong Kong, mainstream media workers mostly treat the
non-mainstream media with mistrust, contempt and jealousy.  In China, the
non-mainstream media sector (related to current news and commentary) is in fact
dominated by the mainstream media workers in exile on their spare time.

Japundit has a post on driver safety, AsiaPundit notes that the Japanese ‘driver-at-fault’ rule holds for most of East Asia (though compensation for pedistarians can vary wildly).:

…in Japan, if a driver is involved in an accident with a pedestrian,
a bicyclist or motorcyclist, the driver is 100% at fault, no matter
what.
This may seem outrageous, especially if you’ve ever
watched school children returning home from school; there’s all sorts
of horseplay involved - little children in yellow hats and clunky red
backpacks chasing each other and darting onto the road. It’s not
unlikely that the hapless Chiba driver was in the wrong place at the
wrong time - that’s why it’s called an “accident.” But let’s face it:
in the eyes of a foreign driver, pedestrians and bicyclists do all
sorts of stupid things in Japan.
They
run out into traffic and wear dark clothing at night, and bicyclists in
particular have the annoying habit of reading manga, smoking cigarettes
and drinking canned coffee, all while holding an umbrella and punching
in email on a cellphone as they navigate a snow-bound Japanese road
constricted down to a single lane because of snow banks and illegally
parked cars.

The Fight Club (aka Parliament) has started again in Taiwan. Jujuflop and Taiwan’s Other Side take a look, from the former:

In England, the ‘Silly Season’ is when
Parliament is in recess, and so the newspapers need to look for silly
stories to replace the normal discussion of political issues. In Taiwan, it starts when the Legislative session starts - because the legislators specialise in silly behaviour.

Thus, it was no real surprise that the first day of the latest session was punctuated by scuffles and water fights.
The main item on the agenda, a policy report by Premier Frank Hsieh,
didn’t happen because opposition legislators blocked the podium, and
one enterprising individual even managed to rip up his speech.

One
female KMT lawmaker splashed tea on the sleeves of Foreign Minister
Mark Chen’s (陳唐山) suit, as scuffles broke out through the morning.
Unhappy
that KMT lawmakers blocked the podium where the premier was scheduled
to speak, DPP lawmakers decided to occupy the seat of the legislative
speaker and rip up the KMT’s placards in one of the day’s more chaotic
episodes.
The KMT lawmakers said they prevented the premier
from speaking to draw attention to questionable measures and suspicions
of impropriety emerging from recent controversies.

The photo is from last year’s memorable food fight. For more on Taiwan, check out Michael Turton’s weekly Taiwan blog roundup.

From Indonesia (via Friskodude) more reasons why you shouldn’t do drugs in Bali.:

I
found out Indonesian law makes no difference between soft ( marijuana)
and hard drugs ( heroine or cocaine ) and don’t separate user from
dealer , because the amount doesn’t matter.
But
as usual, Mr W.Y said :” don’t worry I can get you out, but due to the
circumstances, you will have to pay such amount of money”.

I
was in shock ; All the money I had was about a quarter of what he
wanted , which meant the worst for me : I had to call my mother.
From the very first moment of my arresting , it was my main concern.
But
I had no choice and I did it: She gave me everything she had so did my
closer friends.
We got the money asked which was promptly given to the
lawyer.

I was sent to jail where things got much better: I finally had a mattress , a space to run and met all the foreigners.
But then I started to hear their stories. There were two well defined groups: those who had
given the lawyers what they asked and got a minimum sentence and those
, who despite giving the money asked , got an absurd sentence because
their lawyers put the cash in their pockets and did nothing.

In Singapore, it’s illegal to take durians on the MRT or busses. I thought it was just because of the smell. But if this report is to believed, there may be other safety considerations.:

Via Global Voices Online, I found this post from Indonesian blog Jalan Sutera noting a press report that current speculation has it the cause of the recent Mandala airlines crash in Medan was an overload of……durians.  Three tonnes of them, to be exact.
For the record, I hate durians.  Can’t stand the smell.  And these big, prickly fruits are just plain dangerous.
They grow on huge, very tall trees.  I remember being nearly killed
by a ripe, falling durian as a kid when on a visit to a family friend’s
plantation.  The bloody thing landed just a metre or so behind me.  To
think - death by falling durian.  What an ungracious way to go.

 

Short links after a long humpday.

Reality TV in Malaysia sounds like it’s just as bad as it is elsewhere, although bizarrely wholesome.:

Featuring a group of ambitious young men and women confined in a house and given
voice and dancing lessons, "Akademi" culminates in a concert finale after most
of the contestants are voted out weekly via SMS text messages.

The conclusion of its third season recently attracted 12 million SMS votes, no
mean feat for a country with a population of 25 million.

Its winner, 24-year-old Asmawi Ani, drew a cult following, and his popularity
among the show’s largely Malay audience was mainly due to his clean-cut image,
religious background and past experience in Koran recitals.

However, Najib was incensed that some contestants were shown hugging each other
tearfully as their peers were voted out.

"No hugging please, we are Muslims," he was quoted as saying. "This is about
religion. It is forbidden in the religion."

"We should not blindly follow the west and come out with programmes like
‘Mencari Cinta’, ‘Mentor’ and ‘Akademi Fantasia’ where the scenes don’t portray
our way of life," he thundered.

Mentor, another talent search, sees wannabes teamed up with well-established
chart-topping singers who groom their proteges for success.

Former premier Mahathir Mohamad, known for his outspoken anti-Western rhetoric,
has also expressed his concern, saying reality shows could lead to moral
decadence among Malaysians.

Do you Yahoo? If so, be careful. You could go to jail!

Reporters Without Borders
said court papers showed that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. gave
Chinese investigators information that helped them trace a personal
Yahoo e-mail allegedly containing state secrets to Tao’s computer. . is part of Yahoo’s global network.
Shi, a former journalist for the financial publication Contemporary
Business News, was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for illegally providing state secrets to foreigners.

More at Global Voices.

I posted Marmot’s call for Americans to thank Koreans for their quick response to providing aid to victims of hurricane Katrina. How quickly my goodwill evaporates, I concur with Nomad, and as a former resident of Daegu, I suggest we add bath houses and subway lines to his list.

New Orleans
wants South Korea to take an active role in relief efforts in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  U.S. Louisiana State Representative
Arthur Morrell and other politicians made the call in a Tuesday
interview, thanking South Korea for its aid to the city on behalf of
New Orleans residents.
The politicians said the city seeks
South Korean assistance in engineering, construction materials, medical
aid and hospital reconstruction.  They said Americans and New Orleans
residents will reciprocate if South Korea suffers a disaster.

Just don’t let them build any bridges or department stores!  (Baaad Nomad…baaad Nomad - sorry, just couldn’t pass that one up )

Speaking of goodwill evaporating, a blogger in Tamil Nadu reminds us that Asia has not yet recovered from the Tsunami, Sadly, I expect New Orleans will also fade from people’s attention before everything, from relief to correcting bureaucratic incompetence, is fixed.

Hey - we’re nowhere near finished yet!
For the past 7 months I have
been working with tsunami victims in Tamil Nadu. Well, let me re-phrase
that, I have been trying to work with Tamil Nadu’s tsunami victims, but
unlike most organisations who are in the area, I don’t work with
fishermen communities. Instead I work for organisations interested in
the rehabilitation of people of other professions. People who too have
lost their livelihoods and had their means of income destroyed, but who
have not had them replaced. I work with the STs, SC and MBCs. Their
fate after tsunami has been rather different from the fate of the
fishermen.

China’s insurance sector is relatively solid compared to its banks - partly because its a fairly young industry and hasn’t had as much of chance to make (ahem, state-ordered) mistakes. I’m know nothing about North Korea’s banks, but even though insurance is a new ‘industry,’ I wouldn’t trust it. (Korea Times via OFK):

South Korean companies setting up operations in
the Kaesong industrial complex face difficulties due to a North Korean
obligation that they must purchase insurance policies from a North
Korean state-run firm.
North Korea demands that South Korean firms have
insurance against accidents with a North Korean state-run firm, but
they question whether it is financially stable enough to cover all
possible accidents.
According to related regulations set up by North
Korea last November, South Korean firms in the Kaesong industrial
complex must buy insurance policies from North Korean firms. If South
Korean companies didn’t follow the rule, they had to pay $10,000 in
fines.

Joel points to a survey that leaves me curious. Here’s one for the mathematicians: how much would an average ethnic-Korean gay man smoke if he was a Marine in California?

Marines, gays and Korean men smoke at rates far above the average of all Californians, according to a study released today.
While
15.4% of residents smoke, more than 30% of lesbians and gays do,
according to the study done by the California Department of Health
Services.
“These studies show marked disparities
among California’s communities and confirm that we must continue our
efforts so all of our communities can avoid the disease and death
caused by tobacco addiction,” said Sandra Shewry, director of the
Department of Health Services.
Among active military
stationed in California, Marines reported the highest smoking rate of
26.9%, compared to the Navy’s 20.2%; and 50% more than the Army’s 17.8%
and the Air Force’s 17.5%.
The overall smoking prevalence of Korean-heritage Californians was 15.3%, with 27.9% of Korean men reporting that they smoke.

(image LAT via oranckay.)

Weirdness. Mr Wang Says So, perhaps the most critical Singapore blog this side of Edinburgh, is the Straits Times ‘blog of the week.’  And on the ‘infantile’ side of the S’pore bloggosphere, XiaXue finds her muse (with help from Miyagi).

I never worried about terrorism in Singapore. They react swiftly to any threat. Including large ‘white elephant‘ cut-outs at an unused MRT station.

The blithering idiot/s, who called the police hotline at 999 &
complained about the 8 cut-outs of white elephants outside Buangkok MRT
station, must’ve thought they were some sort of a pre-arranged signal
among terrorists to mount an attack!!! If you think this is bloody
ridiculous, what’s even more ridiculous is the police investigation!!
Frankly,
I’m not surprised about the police investigation. In fact, I wouldn’t
have been surprised if the police started the investigation on its own!
… It’s nit-picking in a police state. Especially when that nit-picking
relates to such issues as freedom of expression and politics in general.

Did I mention that it’s feeling more and more like 1997.:

Via Jakarta Post, Rupiah fails to gain on Bank Indonesia rate hike
Via Antara, Indonesia’s US Dollar Reserves in Crisis: Analyst
Its fiscal mismanagement chickens are now coming home to roost in world’s largest Muslim nation. It’s a pity few are watching.

Fumier has banned Burberry:

A huge quantity of
Burberry knock-offs, confiscated by the Hong Kong Customs chappies, is
being shredded. This is a departure from the previous practice of
removing only those parts of counterfeit items which contravened
copyright, such as the labels and logos, and then auctioning the rest
of the item to the public, effectively making the government a
distributor, and the tax payer a beneficiary, of such products.
Personally, I liked the old policy, except in the case of Burberry
stuff.
Quite why Burberry gear has such appeal in Asia – you can’t walk ten
yards in Tokyo without seeing a Burberry scarf, probably a genuine one,
or a similar distance in Hong Kong without seeing a fake Burberry item
on someone from the lower socio-economic orders - or indeed any appeal,
anywhere, is beyond me, but then these days so many things are.
I long ago instituted a Burberry ban in my office, dressed up, so to
speak, as an anti-copy initiative, requiring that all Burberry items
must be left at the door unless an invoice could be shown to me proving
that the items were original. I am pleased to say that Burberry has not
reared its ugly head in my office for many months. The next stage must
be for all Burberry products, genuine or fake, to be banned and
destroyed everywhere.

It begins… Hong Kong’s Disneyland has started dress rehearsals, Little Cart Noodles takes an advanced look. (via Caleb):

Chris at Ordinary Gweillo looks at an SCMP report on the park.:

• Hongkongers can’t get enough of taking photographs. But they
  don’t want to pay for them and will photograph the monitor image of the
  Space Mountain ride, for example
• Parents will also photograph their children standing next to a balloon seller but won’t buy a balloon
• At the Mad Hatter Tea Cups, they will get out just before the ride
  starts to take photographs, causing the ride to stop automatically
• Groups occupy a table in a restaurant for the whole day as a base camp for their trip

Via Howard French, an essay on Japan, nature, vending machines and pornography.:

Japan also has beer vending machines, something I have always
enjoyed the freedom — I mean convenience — of. But by law, beer
machines have to be turned off at 11 p.m. I’ve never understood this,
though. It seems to me this is the time the beer machines should open,
not close. But beer machines are slowly disappearing in a national
movement to curb underage drinking. Instead, let’s encourage people to
wander around at any time of the night looking for a vending machine
where they can drink caffeine, then continue walking around the
neighborhood because they’re wide awake.
Recently, I was surprised to find a stand alongside a country road,
at a place where you’d normally expect to find a fruit stand, where
they were selling something even juicier: porn. From vending machines.
Apparently countryside peeping Toms need reading material too. But even
more surprising was that these machines selling porn DVDs and magazines
were on a bus route. You can actually take the bus to your favorite
porn vending machine. Talk about, um, convenience!

 

Above image from Photomann’s page of Japanese vending machines.

Mr Wang is starting to take this citizen-journalism thing seriously, interviewing Singapore’s Cyril Wong, an openly gay poet in a country where homosexuality is still technically illegal.:

Cyril is also gay, and openly writes about it in his poetry. That makes
him somewhat controversial (in Singapore, and to some people, at
least). Mr Wang exchanged email correspondence with Cyril over the
weekend, and with Cyril’s permission, reproduces some excerpts here.

On whether Mr Wang can blog about him:

"Yes, sure you can feature me. I am very openly gay. And I
think it is possibly immoral to even hide the fact when I am not
exactly living in a place like Iran, where I would get killed for
something like this. So with regards to being seen as gay very
publicly, I do not mind at all. In fact, I kind of encourage myself to
be as open as possible – it’s my one-man ideological war."

From Flying Chair a one-line look at US coverage of Hong Kong’s milkshake murderess.:

I’m sorry, but a headline about Nancy Kissel right next to an ad for Desperate Housewives had to be kept for posterity.

Given the bad blood that often divides Korea and the US, I recommend US readers take the Marmot’s suggestion to heart and .:

The Korean government decided Sunday to offer US$30 million in aid to the United States
in order to help the country recover from the destruction visited upon
the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. The government will also dispatch
a 50-man search and rescue team to the affected area, and consideration
is also being given to the dispatch of military personnel (which would
require National Assembly approval) should a request be made by the
United States.
South Korea’s offer of US$30 million is, as far
as I know, the second largest offer behind Qatar’s offer of US$100
million, and dwarfs the offers made by other nations in the region
(Japan, for instance, will send US$200,000 and has offered US$300
more). Considering how the Korean economy has seen better days, Seoul’s
offer is beyond generous and I can only hope the U.S. media gives it
more attention than from what I’ve seen so far….
I encourage you to send a message of appreciation to the Korean embassy
in the United States at , or, perhaps even
better, to the Korean consulate-general in Houston
(), which is handling the relief effort in the
devastated areas.

I’ll add that a thank you to another one of my expat homes should also be in order.:

KUWAIT CITY (Agencies): Kuwait said Sunday it was offering $500 million
in oil products to victims of the devastating hurricane in the United
States, the latest contribution from Gulf Arab states to the relief
effort. “We, Kuwaitis, feel it is our duty to stand by our friends to
alleviate this humanitarian tragedy and express our gratitude for the
support extended to us by Washington throughout the distinguished ties
between the two friendly nations,” Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd
Al-Sabah told the official KUNA news agency. He said the $500 million
would come in the form of “oil products needed by the afflicted states
in these conditions and other humanitarian assistance.”

Gojira finally crosses the pond.:

The original Godzilla movie - with its strong antinuclear message that
was lost in the version edited for American audiences - will be shown
in British cinemas for the first time. The movie, which was influenced
by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is being screened
next month in Britain partly because of the 60th anniversary this year
of those attacks. The British Film Institute, which is distributing
“Gojira” to several London cinemas in October, also wants audiences to
see there is a serious message behind the original monster creation.
Some argue this has been lost with the 20 sequels over 50 years and
countless rip offs.

Malaysia is getting rid of its one ringgit coin.:

One week after the news broke on Oriental Daily News, Bank Negara finally confirmed that the RM1 coin will cease to be legal tender with effect from December 7, 2005. However, the RM1 ringgit note will remain valid.
Here’s the BNM official statement on the demonetisation of the RM1 coin, in PDF, 162k. Thanks readers TerenceG, KW Chook, and for the alert.
Without the RM1 coin, I wonder how would Carrefour motivate its customers to self-manage the shopping trolly?

This is really promising news, perhaps someday people won’t have to type dem0cr to get past the firewall.:

Today, according to Reuters,
Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China, has made official what we’ve all
suspected; that democracy in China is just a matter of time. His words:

"China will press ahead with its development of democratic politics,
that is reconstruction, in an unswerving way, including direct
elections," Wen told a news conference ahead of an EU-China summit.

"If the Chinese people can manage a village, I believe in several
years they can manage a township. That would be an evolving system."

China has introduced direct elections for village chiefs in more
than 660,000 villages, and many of those elected are not party members.
But it has dragged its feet on expanding suffrage for the election of
officials at higher levels.

The ramifications of this
statement, though, are immense. It means China has finally admitted
that 1) democratic government is ultimately the best form of government
for social stability, given a mature polity; and 2) that forces within
China are acting as inexorable agents of change that are forcing both
this admission and the evolution itself to a more democratic,
representative form of government. Why do I make conclusion 2)? Because
it seems that when a party such as the CCP has a monopoly on power,
that it would not necessarily want to cede control of that power to
competitive elections.

Finally, happy Labor Day to US and Canadian readers, we close with a cartoon and message from TMV.:

It’s a  somber Labor Day this year.
But for all of us, we can take Labor Day to also labor to think about
how we can help Hurricane Katrina’s many victims — if not by money,
then by giving some old clothing to a local charity that can get it to
the storm’s victims or doing something to help a charity out.

This sounds like an unpleasant way to lose one’s virginity.:

Ms. Wang, a 38 year old woman who says she is a virgin, goes to Cathay
General Hospital with her mother, where Dr. Lin Hui-lin, a minor
celebrity herself, gives Ms. Wang a pelvic exam without getting Ms.
Wang’s permission first.
During the examination Ms. Wang’s hymen
was ruptured. Ms. Wang then filed a complaint with the Consumer
Foundation. After mediation by the Consumer Foundation, Cathay General
Hospital said that it would repair Ms. Wang’s hymen free of charge or
give her NT$100,000.
The Wangs, however, were not satisfied. Ms.
Wang’s father, one Wang Xian-ji, held a news conference where,
brandishing his daughter’s bloody panties (the print version of the
Apple Daily story actually had a picture of this), he demanded NT$5
million in compensation and an apology from Dr. Lin or he would take
her to court for medical malpractice. In the China Times version of
the story Mr. Wang said that although his daughter had had boyfriends,
she had protected her virginity like a treasure. Now her ill-fated
doctor’s visit had destroyed a woman’s most valuable possession-her
hymen.

I recommend full compensation for Ms Wang, plus punitive damages and a trip to this clinic in Manila.:

Meanwhile in Bangkok.

Kittiwat Unarrom, a Thai baker’s son, was trained as a fine artist, but
has switched to baking realistic putrefying human body parts and organs
out of bread and other ingredients, and has become a trendy sensation: Along
with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and
cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, feet, and chicken and pig parts. He
uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics
museum to create the human parts.

Today’s gratuitous image of the female body comes from Fons at the China Herald.:

A funny description by blogger Chinawhite,
a foreigner living in Shanghai, as he was invited for an evening out
with starlet Mimi. Mimi confesses she is looking for a nice foreign
boyfriend - I might have heard that before. Chinawhite did not seem to
have made the test, nor did Mimi.

Danwei points to a BBS post that ponders, "what if Super Girl were run by CCTV?":

The competition starts. Hosts Zhu Jun and Zhou Tao come onstage.

Zhu Jun: The spring breeze of reform blows throughout the
land, and happiness descends from the heavens in waves. Viewers,
through the great attention of leaders at all levels, the cooperation
of local television stations across the country, and with the generous
support of our sponsors, we bring you the CCTV - #6 Pharmaceutical
Power Pill Super Girl Competition!

Zhou Tao: The land is filled with reform’s spring breeze, and
super girls must test their wills. Viewers, the Super Girls competing
in today’s competition have been selected by local TV stations across
the country. Passing through stringent political investigations, they
are red-rooted and upright, they are actively moving forward, they work
hard to closely organize, they are both red and professional, and they
can be completely trusted.

Michael Turton notes that China has allowed Taiwan airlines to use its airspace, and offers a warning.:

Taiwan’s
largest airline said yesterday it will become the island’s first
airline to fly through rival China’s airspace in more than five decades.

China Airlines Ltd. said Beijing has approved its application to use
the mainland’s airspace, a month after Taiwanese Premier Frank Hsieh
(謝長廷) said he would allow the island’s airlines to fly over Chinese
territory.

China’s aviation authorities yesterday approved
applications from four Taiwanese airlines to fly over its airspace
after Taipei urged the permission amid rising oil prices.

Hmmm….given the regularity with which China Airlines’ airplanes fall out of the sky, I’m not sure I’d permit them to fly over my territory….

Also be sure to visit Michael Turton’s weekly Taiwan blog roundup.

In reaction to high fuel prices, Seoul is trying to curb the number of cars on its roads and, for a country known for sporatic crackdowns, it’s impressively doing it through incentives.:

Gas prices are through the roof and as they threaten to get higher and
higher, this could put a crimp on the Korean economy, the world’s
fourth-largest buyer of crude oil and a nation that depends entirely on
imports for its oil needs. According to a Bank of Korea estimate, "a
one-percent rise in oil prices would trim 0.02 percentage point off the
nation’s economic growth."
For that reason, Seoul is reported to be
to give motorists tax and other incentives to prod them to drive less.
As part of the move, the government is revamping efforts to get people
to leave their cars home at least one business day per week (you may
have noticed the round, colored stickers with one day of the week
printed on them).

Meanwhile, North Korea has its own energy-saving plan.:

It is eight o’clock on a Saturday night and darkness envelopes
virtually all of Pyongyang, serving as a vivid reminder of communist
North Korea’s pressing energy needs.
World leaders such as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have
talked of satellite pictures of the Korean peninsula taken at night
that show a brightly illuminated South and the North in total darkness.

Malaysia has started to crackdown on mobile phone porn and will be randomly checking cell phones:

First of all the checking of phones randomly is an invasion of privacy.
It’s terrible and infringes personal liberty. Is it worse that we are
not free within our own country or is it worse that some teenagers
trade naughty pictures and texts?
Secondly by deleting these
records do you actually stop anyone from having the impluses to trade
naughty pictures? No you just drive them deeper underground.

I’ve suggested elsewhere, the US and Australia would get better results in terrorism-related trials in Indonesia if they called off the high-profile statements and resorted to more traditional methods. It seems someone on Michelle Leslie’s legal team understands this.:

That didn’t take long. Today it was reported in the Australian media
that somebody claiming connection with the Balinese police could
intervene in the drug case of Michelle Leslie (aka "Michelle the
Muslim") for a monetary donation. Might just be some jokester, but also
might be just the tip of the iceberg.
At least it’s reassuring
that the investigation into the possible bribe solicitation will be
conducted by………the Indonesian police. That should clear up
matters fairly quickly. Sort of like the Indonesian human rights
activist who was poisoned on his flight to Europe. The pilot is now on
trial.

It seems that Hu Jintao is sensitive to charges that he has been taking China backwards, and has decided to rehabilitate another Hu to help polish his own image.:

The Chinese government has not publicly commemorated the birth or
death of Hu Ya0bang since he died on April 15, 1989, lest publicity
reignite the democratic spark snuffed out on J*ne 4 that year when the
army crushed the student-led dem0nstrations. State media rarely mention
his name.
Hu Jintao decided recently that the party would officially mark the
90th anniversary of Hu Ya0bang’s birth on November 20 at the Great Hall
of the People, said a source close to the family and a second source
with knowledge of the commemorations.

…

One of the sources reports that that some of the current Politburo
Standing Committee will attend the commemoration and that Hu Jintao
wishes to play the Hu Ya0bang card to inherit his political resources
and work on improving his ‘reformer’ image after a number of crackdowns
on liberal intellectuals, the media, the Internet and non-governmental
organisations and further restrictions on basic freedoms.

La idler suggested I should add some beefcake for female readers. It’s not really my area of expertise, but Jodi thinks these guys are eye candy. Nomad thinks the guy in front needs to better accessorize.

I’m always fascinated by anything that looks at the economy of North Korea, OneFreeKorea picks up on an FT item noting the rise of the ice cream man.

The Chosun Ilbo has printed a summary of a Financial Times story
that may change your model of the North Korean economy, but not much.
The story suggests that changes in economic policy in 2002 have in fact
launched a limited number of small private businesses, and that those
businesses are substantially enriching the people who run them.

The World Food Program’s North
Korea director Richard Ragan told the paper the wealthy are
concentrated in five cities, including Pyongyang. They are the group
that can be seen going to work on their bicycles, which cost triple the
average monthly salary in North Korea. The newly affluent work mostly
in retail and service industries and include tailors, ice cream sellers
and bike repairmen who make money in general markets, which have
multiplied to some 300 since 2002. Some farmers selling surplus produce
are also part of what passes for a wealthy class in North Korea.

How long can an economy base
itself on an ice cream vending industry? For explanations by smarter
people than myself, I recommend Marcus Noland’s Korea After Kim Jong-Il and Nicholas Eberstadt’s The End of North Korea
(Eberstadt admits that he failed to predict the success of North
Korea’s aid-seeking strategy, but his analysis of the North Korean
economy itself is sound). An economy that fully participates in the
greater global economy can prosper as a service economy if its services
generate sufficient income to allow it to import the goods it needs.
North Korea will not mirror the experience of, say, Singapore because
it lacks the means to produce goods for its own use or for trade, the
connectivity to participate in the global economy, and the foreign
exchange to purchase what it needs from abroad.

Japan, a country where even the worst television is better than CCTV.

This March, we had a post on the five worst television programs in Japan as selected by the weekly magazine Shukan Gendai. The fifth in the series was Mizugi Shojo (Swimsuit Girls)
broadcast at 3:10 a.m., Thursdays on TV Tokyo. The premise of the show
is to dress some young, busty models in bathing suits and have them
engage in goofy games and repartee.
One of the games is Tongue Golf.
This game is played with one girl acting as the golf course, with her
navel as the hole. Another girl plays golf on her body with a ping pong
ball, using her tongue as the club.

Speaking of Asian television, Gordon notes that the CCTV’s coverage of the disaster in New Orleans leaves much to be desired.:

The wife and I were watching news on one of the CCTV channels this
evening and they were showing footage of the devastation that has
rocked most of the south. They followed that with clips of various
stars trying to raise money for the relief efforts and to my shock they
showed one of Mike Myers (Austin Powers) standing next to a black man
who blurted out "George Bush hates black people and instead of sending
aid, he has sent soldiers with orders to shoot us."
I
damn near fell off my stool. There’s a lot of blame to go around in
regards to this disaster, but calling the President a racist is
completely ignorant. unfortunate though, 1.3 billion Chinese are
probably going to buy into that notion.
That is complete lunacy
and I can not believe that a broadcasting network would allow such
blatant ignorance to be aired like that.

Also on Katrina, Sepia Mutiny notes that Sri Lanka has offered $25,000 in aid, while Madame Chang notes the Philippines is doing the same. Though is she wonders if it is a good thing.:

I have very mixed feelings about this…..
…I
realise that the world is horrified by what has happened, what is still
ongoing and what is still to come in the southern States, I realise
that the world is trying to now do its part and help the ‘Friendly
Giant’ that comes to the aid of others so willingly, I realise that the
Philippines has a strong tie to the US and as such I can see it wants
to do its part to help….I applaud the reaction of sending aid
workers….
However, I cannot help but feel that the $25,000
would be of much greater use at home in The Philippines…..is that
callous or small minded and am I missing a bigger picture here?

And from Bangladesh, Rezwan asks:

… is it fair to compare Bangladesh to the chaos & destruction
United States is facing? Natural calamities are always a tragedy and an
act of God. The humans can only be well prepared and coordinated to
minimize the destruction. Bangladesh faces this kinds of tragedy every
year and still it is a developing not a stagnant country. The media do
not propagate the courage and efforts many Bangladeshis show each year
to start their life all over. If the calamities would not only be the
central idiom of the media, the world could have learnt many tips for tackling these kind of calamities.
Daniel Brett writes a striking post "What America can learn from Bangladesh":

"Last year Bangladesh faced a natural disaster
which was an altogether larger disaster than Hurricane Katrina and the
casualty figures were probably lower than the casualties sustained in
the New Orleans disaster. But the disaster was contained due to the
survival instincts of the Bangladeshi people, their ingenuity in the
face of adversity and their culture of hard work. Rather than shoot and
loot, Bangladesh immediately used its modest resources to limit the
impact of the floods before international aid arrived.

Shanghai is a great place to shop! If you buy your DVD player at Shanghai Carrefour - even a cheap one - you may get a free DVD.:

…so, on our usual weekly/fortnightly/we have no food trip to the Wuning Lu Carrefour, we purchased a new DVD player. All RMB400 worth (about AUD$60). We bought an Oritron-branded DVD player, it looked sweet. It was a lemon. We took it home, hooked it up, and our problems started.
My major gripes were as follows. It wouldn’t turn on. Well, you would
plug it in, and the player power button wouldn’t work - most of the
time. Unplug, wait for 5-10 minutes, and then it would work. Strange.
The converse was also true, you couldn’t turn the thing off. Unplugging
it was the main way we got around this. No worries right? Nah. The
discs we put into the machine would stall, cause the player to crash,
and other such petulant behaviour. Annoying.
But the crux of our decision was the fact that a lovely
surprise was included inside the player. To our delight, we were given
the added bonus of the ‘Adult Tempt‘ DVD. Lovely. It had several, suspicious, greasy fingerprints on the bottom side of the disc. I think ‘the playa’, as it will now be known, had seen some action.

 

How does Jiang Zemin want to be seen by the world and more importantly China. His state-sanctioned bio may give some indication (NYT via Imagethief)

To write his biography, Mao Zedong chose Edgar Snow, a member of the
U.S. Communist Party; Jiang chose Kuhn, a member of the U.S. business
elite. An investment banker with a zeal for science, high culture, and
business, Kuhn personifies the new ideology that has swept through
China since 1989. China’s state propaganda team even chose to leave the
name of Kuhn’s Chinese collaborator out of the book to emphasize the
American financier’s authorship. Nothing better symbolizes Jiang and
his cohort’s transition to a right-wing developmental dictatorship;
every year, they carefully chip away at their socialist heritage

AsiaPundit features a lot of Western expat bloggers in Japan and elsewhere, Global Voices looks at Japanese expat bloggers abroad.

The new CIA director in Seoul is likely a hottie. Or at least I expect she is. Every female Korean spy I’ve seen in a film has been hot.

It was learned Wednesday that a Korean-American woman, identified by her
family name of Han, has taken over as the new station chief of the US
Central Intelligence Agency in Seoul. This is the first time a Korean,
and a Korean women in particular has assumed duties as head of the CIA
station in Korea. Officially, there is no organization going by the
“CIA Korea station.” Instead, the Office of Regional Study inside the
US Embassy plays the role of CIA station here in Korea.

Xinhua, China’s state news agency, may be changing it’s tone on the issue of revisionist Japanese textbooks.:

According to the major Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun, of all
11,035 state and private junior high schools across Japan, only 48
adopted the Fusosha textbook, merely 0.4 percent of the total and far
less than the publisher’s target of 10 percent…

… I don’t remember the Chinese press so clearly mentioning the fact
that less than one percent of Japanese schools use the textbook, or the
fact that some Japanese people don’t like it either. Progress? I wonder
if they are saying these things more clearly for internal consumption
as well, or Xinhua is tired of receiving the same counterarguments.

Google Earth is a spy satellite for the masses. Not only can you get the South Korean presidential compound Cheong Wa Dae, David at Jujuflop noted in the comments that you can get the Chinese Communist Party’s well-guarded compound of Zhongnanhai. Now Curzon of Coming Anarchy turns .:

Pyongyang, North Korea. Note the Ryugong in the upper-left corner.

And the Wannabe Lawyer likes Google Earth too, and says it will cause trouble for one particularly litigious patent holder.:

Virtual-Map, a business entity that specialises in converting public domain data into private ‘intellectual’ property,
had been successful so far in demanding extortionate amounts from
people who make use of their maps. What they have yet to face though,
is competition. No longer.
Now that I have , I don’t see how I would ever need Streetdirectory.com anymore. In fact, I can’t wait for the day when everyone in Singapore starts using . Then its bye bye Virtual-Map, find a new business model please.

There were a number of items in Malaysian blogs about this event, but the NSFW Asian Sex Gazette gives a good summary.:

Kuala Lumpur - A Malaysian men’s magazine may be censured for a cover featuring
a seminude female model draped in the national flag that has sparked an uproar
among Muslims, a senior official said Monday.

The pictures in the August edition of Sensasi Lelaki, or Men’s Sensation, is an
insult to the national flag and disrespectful to the country as it prepares to
mark National Day on Wednesday, said Deputy Internal Minister Noh Omar.

Brand New Malaysian has a picture:

Before anyone gets too upset at the Malaysians for being too uptight, please remember that the West also has its share of fundamentalists and flag worshipers. Why in the US, the issue of making flag burning a capital offense emerges every six months or so. No one in the US would tolerate anyone wrapping themselves in the flag like that. (link nswf near the bottom):

Err, both Japundit and Barbarian Envoy alerted me to this piece of incredible weirdness, OPERATION NUKE KOREA, you don’t even need to scroll to read… just sit back and enjoy the piano.

Travel writer Carl Parks notes another reason why it’s dangerous to use drugs in Bali.:

Few Western tourists actually arrive in
Bali with drugs, since Kuta and other beach towns are overrun with
local Balinese drug dealers who quietly whisper their sales offers near
many discos and nightclubs in Kuta, Legian, and Seminyak. So you buy a
couple of tablets, walk up to the nightclub for an evening of partying,
and find yourself searched and arrested at the front door. An
Australian model (Michelle Leslie) was recently arrested with two tabs
of E in her purse as she approached a nightclub, and now faces 10 years
in prison.
How in the world does the police know to search your
bag or purse? The answer is obvious. The police are the drug dealers in
Bali. Or at least the drug dealers cooperate with the police to turn in
their victims, collect the reward, and most likely enjoy the return of
their drugs. This scam has been going on in Thailand for several
decades, but now it enjoys official endorsement by the Indonesian
government.

One of the first questions asked by the foreign ministry, who needed to authorize my journalists’ visa, was: Do you like Chinese food?" My boss told me to be very diplomatic in the interview, so instead of saying "I prefer Thai," I said: "Yes, especially Sichuan."

I still like Chinese food, though I’m a bit nervous about eating anything here.:

More on the food scandals gripping China - news just in that the
majority of food production, handled by mom-and-pop producers, do not
meet even rudimentary safety standards. An article on Asia News Network
carries the story on why you can’t trust anything you eat in the country…

In 2003, the output value of China’s food industry reached 1.29
trillion yuan (US$161.62 billion), nearly 20 per cent up on 2002. In
the first six months of last year, the industry achieved an output
value of nearly 710 billion yuan ($421.95 billion), a 20 per cent
increase over the same period in 2003.
But reports in the local press say more than 70 per cent of China’s
106,000 registered food makers are family-run outfits of fewer than 10
people. And at least 60 per cent of these cannot meet basic sanitary
standards.Professor Luo Yunbo, dean of China Agricultural University’s college
of food science and nutritional engineering said: "China does not lack
regulations, but there’s a lack of unified supervision and control.

At least food across the Strait is safe… Oh my god is that the chef?!?

I have Taiwan blogger Brian David Phillips on my blogroll and in my Bloglines reader but, truth be told, I never really take the time to read his stuff long enough to figure out what he’s talking about.:

Folks will notice that I have added a new links category in the rightside bar here at Life of Brian . . . hypnocasts which is directly above hypnoblogs.
If you discover other podcasts related to hypnosis, neurolinguistic
programming, influence, focused trance, meditation, changework, and the
like . . . then let me know the address of the webpages that support
the feed and I’ll check ‘em out and add it to the hypnocasts
list (of course, I appreciate linkbacks as well). No, I do NOT mean
commercial sites with payfor mp3 downloads or even free mp3 downloads,
this list is for podcasts or sites that distribute information
interactively or on a semi-regular basis.

Atanu Dey has a must-read opus on the differences between Singapore and India, I’ve had a number of arguments in which I’ve either defended Lee Kwan-yew or lambasted him, but Atanu’s item actually leaves me speechless.:

To root out corruption you can use all sorts of means. You can lecture school children to take an oath to eschew corruption (as in here), you can prosecute a poor milkman for diluting milk (as in here)
— that is, basically you can start at the bottom and implement an
idiotic policy of targeting marginal players while shielding the really
corrupt. Or you can do it by catching the big fish and handing out
exemplary punishments and — this is the important point — publicizing
it so that anyone who is even minimally aware understands that
corruption is not tolerated by the society no matter how powerful the
person is.
This is what I heard. A certain minister, very close to Lee Kuan
Yew, in charge of housing (or some such) was involved in some
kick-backs. The word went around that the guy will surely get off easy
since he was in the inside circle. Lee asked the minister to see him.
The meeting was brief. Two days later the minister blew his brains out.
The message was clear: zero tolerance.

Michael Turton also has some thoughts on Lee’s recent comments on China’s anti-secession law.

This looks promising, Indi Blog Review a profile of Desi or not so Desi Blog(ger)s. First subject, Patrix and Nerve Endings Firing Away.

After being one of the bloggers who ran with the Reuters item saying that Sister Hibiscus was the target of a crackdown, I’ll hold off on comment on this item in the Telegraph suggesting that the CCP are seeking to ban the Mongolian Cow Sour Yoghurt Super
Girl Contest because it’s too democratic.:

China’s propaganda tsars are even less
impressed by the second year of the Mongolian Cow Sour Yoghurt Super
Girl Contest, to give it its full title. One official of the main
broadcasting regulator has said that the show could be taken off the
air if it fails to correct its “worldliness”. Critics from CCTV, the
state-run broadcaster, initially labelled the show vulgar, boorish and
lacking in social responsibility.
Sources said that censors were concerned that the democratic
methods used to select the winner from 120,000 entrants could stir
trouble. For weeks fans have been crowding shopping centres across the
country, carrying posters of their favorite contestants in an attempt
to rally votes for them. On Friday the streets of Changsha, the capital
of Hunan, were swamped with thousands of fans who celebrated until
dawn. Security guards were called in last week at two shopping centres
after Super Girl fans became unruly.

Kim Jong-il’s online public relations site has just received praise from UPI.:

Since it was
launched last summer, North Korea’s Web site to promote the country
with foreigners in mind has taken many by surprise, not least because
of its sleek look and well-organized contents.

There are currently about 30 Web sites backed by Pyongyang, but most are like http://www.uriminzokkiri.com,
which is a site largely devoted to singing the praises of Kim Jong-Il
and his father, as well as the virtues of the hermit nation. In
contrast, Naenara is available not only in Korean, but also seven other
languages, which also include the languages spoken in the five
countries that make up the ongoing six-party talks over the disarming
of North Korea, namely English, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, in
addition to French and German.

I often give UPI a pass over their links to South Korea’s Unification Church (aka, Moonies) but I really must question the agency’s editorial independence from its owner and church head Sun Myung Moon if they consider this to  have a "sleek look and well-organized contents."

Via D J McGuire an item from Taiwan News Online on - among other things - Cisco, Censorship and China:

Gutmann was basing his arguments on those made in his book titled
"Losing the New China - A Story of American Commerce, Desire and
Betrayal," which discusses in detail how American businesses played a
role in restricting freedom of thought in China, in turn betraying the
American values of liberty, democracy, and human rights. Doing business in China could potentially
endanger the national security of Taiwan and the United States as well
as violate democratic values, American scholar-businessman Ethan
Gutmann argued yesterday at a forum held in Taipei.

On a related note, Ian Lamont points to a comprehensive study on China’s Great Firewall.

Warning, the Asia Financial Crisis is coming back! I was going to point to an item in which Andy Xie of Morgan Stanley makes that argument, but I’ll save analysis of Xie for the next China Economic Roundup. Instead, some annecdotal evidence. Why does AsiaPundit sense a crisis? He sees similarities between now and 1997. For instance, we have hot money inflows, overcapacities, and …

this exact same thing happened to me South Korea in 1997 just weeks before the Thai baht crashed!!:

I
once went to a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop here in Korea and asked
for a chocolate shake. I was told they could only make mocha,
strawberry or melon shakes (not the exact flavors because I can’t
remember the exact ones but it doesn’t really matter). Being that they
do advertise themselves as having "31 Flavors," I politely offered to
pay the same price they charge for those options except I would like
chocolate, please.

The worker freaked out. "It’s not on the menu," I was told.
I know," I responded, "but can you not just make one and charge me the same as any other?"
Discussion
among co-workers took place, a phone call was made and the manager came
out from the back to tell me that no, a chocolate shake was impossible.

We’re all screwed!!

Speaking of economic bubbles, I had thought that Shanghai’s recent crackdown of was a draconian but understandable measure. I haven’t read up on Seoul’s problems but ouch!:

On the demand side, the government will raise the capital gains tax
on owners of two houses to 50 percent from the current 9 to 36 percent.
Property holdings tax on apartments and unused land will be raised to 1 percent by 2019 from the current 0.15 percent.
The
assessment base of the comprehensive real estate tax, a national tax
designed to crack down on real estate speculation, will be raised to
100 percent of the standard price gradually by 2009 from the current 50
percent.
And owners of properties worth more than 600 million
won will be subject to a comprehensive real estate tax beginning next
year. Currently, the tax targets people with homes worth more than 900
million won.

And still more bubbling in Hong Kong! We’re all screwed! Blame Baskin Robbins and their inability to make chocolate milkshakes in Pusan.

And on milkshakes, I’m so happy the Brits left Hong Kong with a functional legal system.:

Nancy Kissel slept alongside her husband Robert’s body for two nights, therefore she is not guilty
of murder.  He was into black gay porn websites, cocaine-fuelled sodomy
and other normal, healthy investment bankers’ pastimes, therefore she
is not guilty of murder.  She was helping to organize the United Jewish
Congregation annual dinner, therefore she is not guilty of murder.  Her
handling of pre-Dad’s-visit rotting-corpse- disposal issues was a tad
inexpert, therefore she is not guilty of murder.  The Tai Lam Women’s
Prison baseball team are in high spirits today.

The image of Kissel is snatched without attribution from a Yahoo! image search. Curiously, the first result is Phil!

Congrats, Phil. In a few years your mug will show up in a poorly researched true-crime novel.

Warning to Olympians, if you beat out India for the gold then Bollywood will be mean to you.:

Ahmed Al Maktoum, the shooter from Dubai, is that an assassin from Dubai in the film Sarkar
is referred to as an Olympic gold medalist in shooting. Al Maktoum won
an Olympic gold in the double trap last year, beating India’s
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, and feels it’s a derogatory reference to
him.

More on lingerie model Michelle Leslie’s ‘conversion’ at IndCoup:

Indonesia is an unpredictable place. You should always expect
the unexpected. Maybe it’s something they put in the water. But
whatever it is, the latest news concerning the Aussie model recently
arrested in Bali for drugs possession is simply astonishing to say the
least. Because, right out of the blue, Michelle Leslie, who was only
recently posing in raunchy photoshoots covered in nothing more than
body paint is now donning the full Muslim headdress!

But why? Bali is a Hindu island after all. And what’s more, her
actions have caused such an uproar back in Aus that her family have had
to make a public apology to offended Muslims who quite understandably
think she’s taking the piss.

You can’t judge a book by the cover, but you can usually judge a movie from the trailer; Danny Bloom says Geisha sucks.

Having recently seen the trailer for Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha,
which Hollywood has tried to turn into a movie to hit world movie
screens for Christmas viewing (and Oscar nominations time), I can’t
help but feel this film will be a dud.
Why? Well, I’m not a
New York Times film critic, and I don’t have a Ph.D. in film studies,
but one look at the trailer and it’s obvious that the American
producers erred bigtime by deciding to cast Chinese actresses in the
roles of the Japanese characters in Golden’s book.
For one
thing, the big-name Chinese actresses “look” like Chinese women, from
their faces to their hair to their body language, and they speak
English in the movie with Chinese-accented English. It’s obvious they
are not Japanese. The film becomes a travesty of movie-making.

It’s Blog Day! And no one gave me a present!

Jeff Ooi celebrates with a tour of the Malaysian blogosphere. Kenny Sia celebrates with a tour of the Malaysian babe-o-sphere.

In Singapore, Mr Wang disagrees with the linking policy of metablog Tomorrow.sg, which is - essentially - if you put something in the public domain… it’s PUBLIC!:

At one level, Mr Wang agrees with Tomorrow’s position, for the reasons
that Agagooga has stated. Mr Wang himself regularly links to other
bloggers’ posts without seeking their permission. Although "Did Mr Wang Say So?" is on a much smaller scale than Tomorrow, the same principles ought to apply.
On the other hand, Mr Wang uses his brain when choosing his
hyperlinks. And Mr Wang considers it inappropriate for Tomorrow to take
an overly cavalier approach to this task. It is one thing to say, "Oh,
YOU put your personal story on the Internet yourself, don’t blame US
for publicising it." This kind of excuse, while not entirely invalid,
is a poor excuse for the Tomorrow editors to display bad editorial
taste, to make bad editorial choices and to be lousy human beings.
Tomorrow (or any other blog) is perfectly free to act as a
screaming tabloid if it wants to. It doesn’t necessarily follow that it
is a good thing for Tomorrow (or any other blog) to act as a screaming
tabloid. And the fact that people didn’t stick "Respect My Privacy"
banners or buttons all over their own blogs doesn’t mean that a
Tomorrow editor can’t exercise some good judgment on his own accord to
do what’s right.

AsiaPundit doesn’t mind being a tabloid blog. Asia has a three easily available English-language broadsheets - the AWSJ, IHT and FT all nicely acronymed to increase appeal in Singapore - and it could use a good tabloid. Further, most of the Tomorrow.sg-linked blogs are Blogger hosted. If you want your blog to be private… password protect it. Duh!

But speaking of Tabloid Crap, that’s the category under which :

According to the JoongAng Ilbo (Korean), Koreans fart a lot.
Hey, don’t blame me for this one — blame the JoongAng. Anyway, the
piece said that while it might be hard to draw a hard and fast
conclusion, one could guess that Koreans break wind particularly often
due to the large amount of gas-producing foods they consume — beans,
veggies, fruits and raw foods. The rising consumption of milk doesn’t
help matters, and those with trouble digesting lactose and the elderly
with weakening digestive power are particularly susceptible to
becoming, in the colorful choice of words by the JoongAng, “gas shells”
(like in the WWI artillery round).

And the JoongAng Ilbo, I recall, is a broadsheet.

Hey, Google solved that East Sea/Sea of Japan problem that was causing all of those DNS attacks across the East Sea Sea of Japan body of water that separates the two countries.:

Oh while today is blog day and the day Malaysia gained independence, tomorrow, September 1st, is the day Tibet lost it.