INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories: has what they’ve been able to piece together on an emerging major issue. Allegations of the President of the Philippines being caught on tape conspiring with other officials to cheat in the last national elections resulted in the administration releasing its own version. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) a highly credible independent journalist’s group, is known for its trailblazing reportage.

Although it’s illegal, there is little stigma attached in South Korea to males that frequent prostitutes (the inverse doesn’t hold).

It’s not unusual for university-aged men to have nights out with friends at brothels. Ergo, there’s a strong chance that the police trained for this at the academy. ():

Setting guidelines for cracking down on prostitution last March, the Supreme Prosecutors Office instructed its agents raiding businesses of ill repute to pretend to be customers and have sex with the working girls in order to secure evidence. Actually, one group would go in pretending to be customers, while the other would come in slightly later to bust the pimps after the other group had secured the evidence, so to speak. Agents were further encouraged to pay pre-arranged service fees on their credit cards for further evidence.

BY JOVE!, a blog written by a television reporter who covers the presidential beat in the Philippines, writes of the recent decision by the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to go on the offensive by releasing recordings of a phonecall which the opposition says shows her coordinating cheating for the last presidential elections. The Philippine president says the opposition doctored a genuine recording. The reporter transcribes the supposedly genuine version and comes to a damning conclusion:

okay, i can still transcribe THE ALTERED version…but do you really want me to to that after reading everything in the ORIGINAL?

China’s drive to have independent websites shutdown ‘registered with the government’ is not an idle threat. Rebecca MacKinnion cites RSF:

A China-based blogger told Reporters Without Borders on condition of anonymity that the Shanghai police recently rendered his website inaccessible because it had not been registered. He then phoned the MII [Ministry of Information Industry] to ask what he had to do in order to register, and was told that in his case it was "not worth bothering" because "there was no chance of an independent blog getting permission to publish."

China Snippets noted that the last such drive, in 2002, was more words than action. What’s different this time? Possibly technology (Interfax via China Herald):

Meanwhile, by May 23 of this year, the MII had already received registration applications for approximately 430,000 domain names. However, the new "Night Crawler System" has already located 573,755 websites operating with Mainland Chinese IP address, the MII said, meaning roughly 26% of websites remain unregistered.

Fons says: "Unclear what is next, but I do expect a small exodus to non-Chinese IP-addresses, if that option is open."

The "Night Crawler," it seems, is only targeting China based IP addresses, which means that Chinese blogs hosted outside the country cannot (presently) be targeted. However, the Great Firewall prevents many from accessing free blog-hosting sites such as blogger,and a nonconvertible currency and lack of foreign-currency credit cards prevents many Chinese from buying hosting.

With that, volunteers for the below project are welcome.:

UPDATE: More on Night Crawler here. (link via Global Voices.)