News today is that Apple’s itunes, a site which sells music and other media, is being blocked in China, ostensibly for recently making “Songs for Tibet” available on the store. “Songs for Tibet”, for those unfamiliar with it before now, is another one of those pat-yourself-on-the-back charity compilation albums put together by an assortment of [...]
An update on the Olympic protest parks, as covered in an earlier post. Here are excerpts from the Guardian UK:
…as the end of the Games approaches, not a single permit has been issued and park managers have not even made plans for handling demonstrators, because they do not expect any.
Apparently, of 77 protest applications lodged, [...]
MarketWatch reports that China’s industrial growth in July hit its weakest point in the past 18 months, falling to 14.7%, compared to 16% in June. The obvious reason for the slowdown is the Olympics, which has–in an effort to beautify Beijing and divert resources to the games–put large curbs on factory output in the Beijing [...]
The big news lately has around the “misrepresentations” apparently undertaken by the organizers to make the lavish Olympic opening ceremony as perfect as possible. The iconic scene where a young girl sang “Ode to the Motherland” (歌唱祖国) was, apparently, dubbed with the voice of another, less attractive girl. A fireworks show of footprints leading up [...]
With the Olympics in full gear things are happening at rapid fire speed in China. Rather than track new things occurring, then, Dongcha thought it might be appropriate to give updates on a few topics from the last few weeks.
First, the Uyghurs. Homemade explosives killed 11 in hotels, supermarkets and government offices in the town [...]
After many months of having to endure journalism that all follows the same emerging-superpower-showcases-development-with-Olympic-games-but- still-must-struggle-with-human-rights-and-environmental-issues line, the Olympics finally launched last night. It seems that, except for thousands of Western journalists who were defining their careers around the reporting line given above (what an angle!), just about everybody can finally let out a sigh of [...]
Bush, trying to appease stateside critics of his decision to attend the 2008 Olympics despite China’s still-poor human rights record, gave a speech in Bangkok today criticizing China:
Change in China will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and its own traditions. Yet change will arrive. And it will be [...]
The big pre-Olympics news today is a last-minute visa cancellation for 2006 Olympic gold-medalist Joey Cheek. Cheek is the co-founder of Team Darfur, which is self-described on it’s website as a “campaign leading up to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing… to put international pressure not only on Sudan, but also on those countries [...]
ExpressIndia reports that table tennis is losing its appeal for China’s younger generation, which is increasing becoming interested in basketball.
The reasons for the shift are the usual culprits. Ping pong is an individualized, stand-in-place sport, while basketball is played with a team on a court, providing opportunities for strategy, sweaty bodies, showmanship and other things [...]
China’s vast Western province of Xinjiang is in the news today:
Two men armed with knives and explosives ambushed a military police unit in China’s majority Muslim northwest Monday morning, killing 16 officers and wounding 16 others before being arrested, according to the state media.
Besides finally giving Beijing some solid evidence to back claims that the [...]