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08 Dec 2010 09:59

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World: China clamps down before Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel award ceremony

  • 272 people harassed or jailed prior to the Nobel ceremony source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Dec 2010 10:18

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World: Le sigh: China gets allies to boycott Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

  • 19 countries will boycott Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony source
  • » Who are these people? Besides China (duh), the countries are Afghanistan, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, Vietnam and Ukraine. Most aren’t very surprising, but a couple (The Philippines, Russia) are. So why are they choosing to boycott Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony? Simple. China probably threatened economic retribution against countries that supported the ceremony. And China is powerful.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Nov 2010 00:19

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U.S., World: Five random facts from Wikileaks’ diplomatic cable leak

  • one China was behind the hack attack that led Google to temporarily withdraw from the country. (Duh.)
  • two Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah wants the U.S. to attack Iran to kill off its nuclear program. (Hmm.)
  • three The Afghan vice-president came a-knockin’ in the UAE with $52 million dollars in his luggage.
  • four The U.S. worries about Silvio Berlusconi’s tight friendship with Vladimir Putin, but not Leo’s.
  • five Obama would only meet with Slovenia if they took a Gitmo detainee from the U.S. Wow. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Nov 2010 11:22

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World: China wants to get North, South Korea back to negotiating table

  • 2008 China, North and South Korea, Japan, Russia and the U.S., had six-party disarmament talks about North Korea’s nuclear program. The North walked out when it became clear it was an intervention.
  • 2010 China, looking to help ease things between on-the-brink-of-war North and South Korea, is pushing for another round of talks. China says it won’t be like last time; South Korea is thinking about it. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Oct 2010 10:51

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World: Human rights violation: Nobel Peace laureate’s wife under house arrest

  • The precondition for sentence reduction or parole is an acknowledgement of your crime. If Xiaobo would do that, he wouldn’t have won the peace prize.
  • Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo’s lawyer, Shang Baojun • Regarding his client’s current status in prison. As crazy as the Chinese democracy fighter’s incarceration is, his wife’s status is nearly as bad. Liu Xia is currently under house arrest for simply being married to the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. While she was allowed to meet her husband briefly, she’s been blocked off from the outside world since Friday night. Chinese authorities also broke her mobile phone. Her only contact with other life forms right now? Twitter. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Oct 2010 12:06

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World: Three negative side effects of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize win

Liu Xiaobo, posted by laihiu on Flickr

  • This of course doesn’t take away from Liu’s win at all. After a year when the Nobel Peace Prize committee faced heavy criticism for selecting the relatively fresh Obama as their pick, they’ve redeemed themselves by picking someone on the front lines of peace activism – only the third currently-incarcerated winner in the award’s history. (He’s serving 11 years in prison, a harsh sentence, on fairly minor charges.) Of course, China doesn’t see it that way, and it could – at least in the short term – do more harm than good for the world at large. Some (mostly unfortunate) side effects from the win:
  • (photo by Flickr user laihiu)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Sep 2010 21:43

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Tech: The iPhone’s grip on China: They can’t keep it stocked

  • 100k number of iPhones Unicom sold in China in a six-week period last year – kinda meh
  • 200k number of iPhone 4 pre-orders the mainland mobile company has taken so far
  • 40k number of iPhones that flew out of Apple’s grasp in China on Saturday –they ran out source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

21 Sep 2010 21:14

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World: Google’s transparency map: The U.S. firmly at the top, China missing

  • We appreciate Google doing this. Letting people know how governments are censoring or looking into content is important for a free society. However, we do find China’s entry very disappointing. Here’s all it says: “Chinese officials consider censorship demands to be state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time.” That said, take a look at how the U.S. compares to every other country. They’re way ahead of everyone else. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Aug 2010 13:30

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World: Thanks computers! Chinese, Japanese youths forget how to write

  • goodTechnology has made it easier than ever for Chinese and Japanese youths to use their language.
  • bad As a result though, many of them no longer know how to actually write it out by hand. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Aug 2010 21:31

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Biz: It’s official: China’s economy is bigger than Japan’s, way behind U.S.

  • $1.28B the GDP of China’s newly 2nd-place economy in the second quarter of 2010
  • $1.22B the GDP of Japan’s economy in 2nd quarter 2010, which fell behind China for the first time
  • $14B the GDP of the U.S. economy throughout 2009, which is way out in front source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink
 
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