What's in the News

I witnessed the way they treated dogs before killing them at the market yesterday. Banning dog meat is fine by me...if they would also make it legal to beat eight kinds of crap out of malicious sadists who take a perverse joy in animal cruelty, it would be even better!

I hope this is about the eating of strays (or pets) and not the more standard food dogs. I love dog meat. It's a regular dish for me.

The great karaoke-based protest movements are being repressed!

China's Big Brother Is Watching Karaoke (January 27, 2010, Yahoo! News)
Karaoke will never be the same in China. The government there has created a new law called the "National Karaoke Content Management System," also know as "The Black Box," which censors singers from belting out lyrics that are obscene or call for independence in places including T. A few of the phrases on the list of obscenities include "nightmare," "even pigs die," and "conquer the world." Nearly 180 bars in the city of Chonqing and hundreds more around the country are already being subjected to the karaoke crackdown, with police automatically notified when an illicit phrase is sung. The same device that is installed in bars is also used to stop piracy and the import of unlicensed music.

Can we please ask them to censor the theme song to Titanic. 

<intoxicated post alert: the poster is currently intoxicated and may later regret (or not) any offending words in the following post/>
I have a love/strong dislike-but-several-steps-from-hate thing with KTV. I love going there with a group of colleagues, students, business clients, whatever, and getting well-wrecked and singing and having a good time, one and all. I hate the fact that, foreigness being what it is, most of the music that I would sing is simply unknown in these parts. Go ahead, you find Townes Van Zandt or Alan Price or the Grateful Dead or the Who in these parts. Until now I could smuggle in my own personal stash of mp3 music and DL it onsite and boogie until dawn, but not now. Music is now on a par with heroin, ecstacy and whatever. If it ain't on the list, its' verboten. Cross the line and you'll hear from us.

I'm not the kind of person that security types usually have it in for; I'm past the age,
I'm not in touch with any of the usual suspects (I hope not). As a teacher I have walked the line and stayed well clear of any controversy; I let sleeping dogs lie and I'm happy to be left alone. I serve no greater cause than my own family. Frankly, greater causes scare me. I'm happy to be a guest and a well-behaved guest in this country, and I am happy to give this country what little I have to offer. However, when things reach a certain point, i have to wonder what is going on here, how I fit into the scheme of things, and whose interests I am serving. And I'm not happy with how things have changed. When the security apparatus is a greater threat to honest citizenry than the terrorists and criminals, then you know who has won. And, more to the point, who has lost.

yeah the censorship since i've been here has really annoyed me, specially since they seem to be getting worse not better as the country gets richer

most of the time i don't think about it, but then when i do think about it i think about moving to a different country

Korea activists target foreign English teachers

A South Korea group uses the Internet and other means to track foreign teachers, in an effort to ferret out illegal or unsavory behavior. The teachers say they're victims of stalkers and rumors.

Reporting from Seoul - Sometimes, in his off hours, Yie Eun-woong does a bit of investigative work.

He uses the Internet and other means to track personal data and home addresses of foreign English teachers across South Korea.

Then he follows them, often for weeks at a time, staking out their apartments, taking notes on their contacts and habits.

He wants to know whether they're doing drugs or molesting children.

Yie, a slender 40-year-old who owns a temporary employment agency, says he is only attempting to weed out troublemakers who have no business teaching students in South Korea, or anywhere else.

The volunteer manager of a controversial group known as the Anti-English Spectrum, Yie investigates complaints by South Korean parents, often teaming up with authorities, and turns over information from his efforts for possible prosecution.

Outraged teachers groups call Yie an instigator and a stalker.

Yie waves off the criticism. "It's not stalking, it's following," he said. "There's no law against that."

Since its founding in 2005, critics say, Yie's group has waged an invective-filled nationalistic campaign against the 20,000 foreign-born English teachers in South Korea.

On their website and through fliers, members have spread rumors of a foreign English teacher crime wave. They have alleged that some teachers are knowingly spreading AIDS, speculation that has been reported in the Korean press.

Teacher activists acknowledge that a few foreign English instructors are arrested each year in South Korea -- cases mostly involving the use of marijuana -- but they insist that the rate of such incidents is far lower than for the Korean population itself.

"Why are they following teachers? That's a job for the police," said Dann Gaymer, a spokesman for the Assn. for Teachers of English in Korea. "What this group is up to is something called vigilantism, and I don't like the sound of that."

In November, the president of the teachers group received anonymous e-mails threatening his life and accusing him of committing sex crimes.

"I have organized the KEK (Kill White in Korea)," one e-mail read in part. "We will start to kill and hit [foreigners] from this Christmas. Don't make a fuss. . . . Just get out."

Yie acknowledges that he has been questioned by investigators but denies any involvement in the threats of violence.

"To be honest," he said, "a lot of our group members believe the teachers made this all up."

The debate over foreign English teachers is symbolic of a social shift taking place in a nation that has long prided itself on its racial purity and singular culture, South Korean analysts say.

In less than a decade, the number of foreigners living in South Korea, with a population of nearly 49 million, has doubled to 1.2 million, many of them migrant workers from other Asian nations.

Also included are the foreign English teachers, most from the United States, drawn here by compensation packages that may include as much as $2,500 a month plus free rent and a round-trip ticket to teach a Korean population obsessed with learning from native speakers.

Yie's efforts have the support of some educators who say many foreign teachers lack the skills to run a classroom.

"This has nothing to do with race. It is all about teaching," said Kim Young-Lan, a sociology professor at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul.

The government has tried to stem what it sees as a troubling number of racist incidents. A 31-year-old man was charged last year for a verbal outburst against an Indian man and a Korean woman traveling together on a city bus in Seoul.

But some teachers from abroad say Korean laws regarding their status remain discriminatory. Foreign English teachers must undergo HIV tests and criminal and academic checks that are not required of Koreans doing the same work, they say.

Yie says he has nothing against foreigners. Growing up near the city of Osan, he often rode with his taxi driver father and encountered foreigners who served at the U.S. military base there. "I learned to pick out the good guys from the bad guys," he says

In 2005, by then living in Seoul, he joined the fledgling activist group after seeing an upsetting posting on a website: claims by foreign teachers that they had slept with Korean students.

Yie, who is single and has no children, volunteered to help organize an effort to rein in such behavior.

"People were angry; most of them were parents with kids," he said. "We all got together online and traded information."

Gaymer says he doubts that such a posting ever existed. Instead, he says, Koreans were angry about photos posted on a job website showing foreigners dancing with scantily clad Korean women.

"They were consenting adults at a party with foreign men," he said. "They weren't doing anything bad or illegal."

Yie's group, Gaymer says, has used the incident as a rallying call. "They're posting online pictures of teachers' apartments and whipping each other into a nationalist frenzy, creating a hysteria against all English teachers, troublemakers or not," he said.

Yie, who says his group is managed by half a dozen key figures and has 300 other members, created a system for parents and others to report bad teachers. The group says it has contributed to several arrests, including the recent bust of several foreign instructors for gambling and marijuana possession.

"I'm being called a racist who judges the entire group by the mistakes of the few," Yie said. "I'm trying to look at these teachers with an open mind."

Does this mean I won't be woken up at all hours by "Good Luck" messages???   

China sets limit on Spring Festival SMS (February 1, 2010, Xinhua)
Mobile phone users in China will need to limit the number of Chinese New Year text messages they send during Spring Festival as part of a crackdown on spam messages. An agreement among the country's three main mobile network operators last June stipulates that if the number of messages sent from a phone number reaches 200 within an hour or 1,000 within a day, the phone's message service will be suspended for a week. For holidays and weekends, the allowable limit will increase to 500 hourly and 2,000 every day, it said.


But it is interesting the level of control the gov't has over the whole system.

A good measure.

But like you said, Lotus, a tad unnerving in its implicaitons.  MInd, just monitoring traffic alone seems to me reasonable.

A new team to cheer for!

The daughter of a friend of a friend is in the team, which is why I am interested.  And yes, it does have echoes of "Cool Runnings" - they trained by pushing a cart around Epping Oval for several miles a day.  They came 14th in the last Olympics, but they raised all the money themselves to compete, qualify. A lot of it paid for by her father, they bought a second hand sled from a German team and they had to fix it and prepare it themselves, get it painted in Australian colours, which they had to get colour codes (Bunnings helped out there I think), then they had to pay for the accommodation etc as well. Very little support from Australian Olympic Committee.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/10/2815248.htm

Thinking of everyone in Chile at the moment after their 8.8 (!!!!!!!) shaker- and now we're expecting a tsumani to hit early tomorrow morning in my hometown back in Oz! Hope mum's left her beachside shack, or surf's up!

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26783581-952,00.html


February 28, 2010 12:20am

PEOPLE on Australia's east coast are being warned to stay away from beaches on Sunday morning after warnings of a possible tsunami.

The alert follows a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake which struck off the coast of Chile, toppling buildings, cutting power and killing at least 78 people.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Centre has issued an alert for people to take "urgent action ... to protect lives and property".

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) issued a tsunami watch at 6.45pm (Queensland time, EST) on Saturday declaring a "potential tsunami threat'' to New South Wales, Queensland, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

The Bureau of Meteorology said tsunami waves could start affecting Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands after 7.30am on Sunday.

NSW could be hit after 7.45am on Sunday, while Queensland could be hit after 8.15am.

Emergency Management Queensland said residents in coastal areas of the state's south east should keep off beaches and foreshores on Sunday morning when conditions could be rough.

"Advice from the bureau is that there is the possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding for several hours tomorrow morning,'' Acting Deputy Chief Officer Wayne Coutts said in a statement on Saturday night.

"No evacuations are necessary, however we are asking people to avoid their coastal areas.

"Please do not be tempted by curiosity, and consider safety first.''

People in NSW are also advised to keep away from the coast.

The NSW Government has warned of possible "dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding for several hours from 7.30am''.

"The potential impacts of the tsunami for Australia will become clearer once the tsunami reaches Hawaii,'' Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan said in a statement.

The NSW State Emergency Service said late on Saturday that people should stay away from the beach altogether between Broken Bay, north of Sydney, and the Queensland border.

"No fishing, no swimming, no boating,'' SES spokesman Phil Campbell said.

"There will be people who want to go sightseeing, but urge them not to.''

Bureau duty forecaster Jake Phillips said the NSW coast north of Broken Bay and up to Queensland's south coast as far as Double Island Point near Brisbane could be affected by strong waves.

But he said there is no concern of land inundation.

"But there is a marine threat and that would include anyone out boating or rock fishermen,'' he said.

The quake struck off Chile's coast at 3.34am local time (4.34pm) on Saturday, shaking buildings in the capital, where some buildings have collapsed.

For more information about local warnings visit www.bom.gov.au

Chile's government says 76 people are confirmed dead.

The death toll comes from the deputy interior minister, Patricio Rosende. His boss, Edmundo Perez Yoma says: "the death toll will continue rising''.

The epicentre of the tremor was 100km north northwest of the Chilean town of Chillan and 115km northeast of Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live along the Bio Bio river.

The US Pacific Tsunami warning centre has also issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru, and a tsunami watch is in place for Ecuador, Colombia, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica.

Japan's meteorological agency also warned of a tsunami risk across large areas of the Pacific as US geologists said the risk extended as far as the Antarctic.

"There is a possibility that tsunami will widely occur in the Pacific Ocean,'' an official for the Japanese agency said.

New Zealand has also issued a tsunami alert .

 "There is a possible marine threat along the east coast of the North Island and South Island and Chatham Island,'' New Zealand's Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management said, warning of waves of up to 1m.

The massive quake plunged much of the Chilean capital, Santiago, into darkness as it snapped power lines and severed communications early on Saturday.

AFP journalists spoke of walls and masonry collapsing while people in pyjamas fled onto the streets.

Television images showed destroyed or heavily damaged buildings and debris-strewn streets.

Residents in the south of the city, which appeared to have borne the brunt of the quake, said roads had crumpled and a bridge had been damaged, as an AFP correspondent said buildings "shook like jelly''.

A partial evacuation of Easter Island has been ordered in Chile in the face of possible big tidal waves, President Michelle Bachelet announced.

She also said two ships with aid had been dispatched to Robinson Crusoe Island, part of the Juan Fernandez Archipelago, which has been affected by a big tidal wave.

Japan's meteorological agency warned of a tsunami risk across large areas of the Pacific including as far away as the Antarctic, as the Philippines warned low-lying coastal areas to prepare for possible evacuation.

Chilean President Michele Bachelet and her officials rushed to their offices to coordinate disaster relief, state television said, as the powerful aftershocks panicked the quake-prone Latin American country.

"With the quake of this magnitude and given its timing, we cannot rule out other casualties,'' Bachelet said as first reports came in of deaths.

Santiago is 325km northeast of the epicentre of the quake, which hit at a depth of 35km.
 
Asian nations have been on heightened alert ever since a massive 2004 tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ordered his government to be prepared to offer support for victims if necessary, Jiji Press reported.

"Swift action should be required,'' Hatoyama told reporters. "It appears to be fairly sizeable. I told ministries concerned to be ready to take measures in case relief assistance is needed.''

The European Union said it stood ready to provide immediate and coordinated aid for victims.

Earthquake-prone Chile lies along the Pacific rim of fire and is regularly rocked by quakes, but damage is often limited as they mostly hit in desert regions which are sparsely populated.

In May 1960, the country was ravaged what is now known as Valdivia or Great Chilean Earthquake, which was rated 9.5 on the Moment Magnitude Scale.

The resulting tsunami affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines, reaching as far as eastern New Zealand and southeast Australia.

The estimated death toll from that disaster ranged from over 2200 to 5700.

TSUNAMI WARNING NUMBER 5 FOR QUEENSLAND

Issued by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) at
11:47 PM EST on Saturday 27 February 2010

50cm high waves at Norfolk Is.  Tsunami warning cancelled for Queensland coast.  30cm in Japan.  All good on the tsunami front.

Yep, chatted to the family this arvo, all quiet on the (eastern) front!

A 4 year old girl was crushed/suffocated to death in a kindergarten mianbao che that was made to hold 7 people, but was packed with 20-30 kids. It was only her second day at the kindergarten. These sorts of stories involving kids make me so damned sad.

http://post.news.tom.com/s/9A000AB12308_1.html

“foreigner only” housing complex in Chengdu

I've no problems with a housing development aimed at 'foreigners' in theory (let's not get into what that actually means...) but to specifically state that "Chinese are not allowed to buy or rent any unit in the complex"...dunno, seems very backward.