Stories about East Asia from August, 2005
Philippines: Arroyo has to go
To the members of the Black-and-White Movement, issues surrounding the Presidency and the Impeachment Complaint share no room for shades of gray when it comes to the Truth. There are others who feel the longer President Arroyo stays in power, the more bankrupt government becomes. A rally is being planned...
Cambodia: Blogs as university research topic
Tharum's blogging experience becomes the research topic for Pannasastra University students who study for Fundamentals of Communication. The referral came from an article in the Cambodia Daily.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) is being pressed to convict masterminds of last year’s murder of acclaimed human rights campaigner Munir, who was killed by arsenic poisoning while on a September 6-7 Garuda flight from Jakarta to Singapore to Amsterdam. Though the suspects , Garuda Indonesia pilot and alleged intelligence...
Indonesia: New blog
Former politics and economics website Laksamana.Net has reincarnated into an English blog named Paras Indonesia, though it retains the former URL. Editorially backed by six columnists, it attempts to present straight news that explains the dynamics and intricacies of Indonesia, like this one – Pressure on President as rupiah hits...
China: Homeland Security officer trial
The ongoing trial of a U.S. Homeland Security officer charged with the beating of a Chinese tourist at Niagra Falls last year is not well-known to Americans, but it definitely is to people in China. ESWN is following developments on this page. Zhao Yan, the Chinese tourist, will testify tomorrow...
China: Furong Jiejie's false claim of Censorship?
At my personal blog RConversation.com, I link to a Red Herring article in which journalist Kaiser Kuo concludes that claims of censorship by Chinese blogger “Sister Hibiscus” are actually false. I would love to know what Chinese bloggers think about this whole issue, and whether anybody has any concrete evidence...
Images From China: Shanghai Subway Scene
“Shanghai MRT” by Vampirex A subway train pulls out of the station in Shanghai.
China: “Super Girls” and SMS democracy
ESWN has a long, reflective post about Hunan TV's “Super Girls” show, in which viewers voted via SMS for their favorite girl singers. He translates the Chinese-language posts by some bloggers who believe the “Super Girls” phenom could mark the beginning of a more democratic culture in China. But ESWN...
Hong Kong: Rant TV-blog
www.faint.tv looks set to be a blog specifically to rant about Hong Kong Cable TV, observes OrdinaryGweilo. A worthy subject, but sustainability is suspect, he adds.
China: BloggerCon
Organisers of the Chinese Blogger Conference scheduled for November are looking for voluntary English-Chinese interpreters, and those based in Shanghai are preferred. The beta version of bloggercon schdule and preliminary list of speakers has been announced. Topics lined up include podcasting, tags/folksonomy, and blogs and education.
China: Bokee.com
Kevin Wen points to a Reuters story that reports on Bokee.com, which claims the biggest share of China’s blogging market with about 2 million registered users. The company set up in 2002, which provides free blogging services, says it is adding 6,000-10,000 daily. Main revenue: Advertising.
Freedom of Speech News
According to Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), and Human Rights Watch, here are the latest developments on threats to Freedom of Speech over the past week: Tunisia: Government bans new journalists’ union from holding founding congress. RSF reports that the Tunisian government has decided to ban the Union of Tunisian Journalists...
China: Newspaper circulation
While Malaysian newspapers conventionally base their advertising rates cards on readership figures, China's base it on both circulation and readership. As such, disputes often erupt with one newspaper publishes a set of quarterly figures and rival newspaper disputes them, like what happened in Malaysia. In China, the lack of reliable...
Cambodia: Jobless woes
Young college graduates are in Cambodia are finding hard to get employed while transparency is said to be lacking in employee recruitment. Blogger ThaRum says employers are now seeking talents with additional language proficiency in French, Chinese and Thai besides competency in computer.
Blog Day 2005
Sometime in June of this year Israeli blogger Nir Ofir had a realization: the date 3108 (or August 31st) looks suspiciously like the word “Blog.” He had also become increasingly aware that as more weblogs from around the world make their way onto the internet, the more we get stuck...
News from Chinese Blogosphere(Aug 21th-27th)
1 Firewall Update: From Aug 20th, internet users in mainland China generally began to experience access failures when they tried to browse websites outside China. Even the searching engine Google and its mail service Gmail are both inaccessible while all the websites based in China are normal. Keso pointed out...
The World Reacts to Robertson
In the global chatter about U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson‘s remarks calling for the assasination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (for which he later apologized), there is much reflection on religious extremism – and the extent to which it is tolerated in various countries. Calvin Ng, a Malaysian Christian, condemns “Mad...
China: Real names required
While Shenzhen-based chat service QQ has been ordered to register the real names of all its customers, it's business as usual for Blogcn, one of China's largest weblog hosting companies, said founder and chairman Hu Zhiguang in BusinessWeek.
Singapore: Blog voyeurs?
Newspaper readers are asked whether they agree that “People who read blogs are basically voyeurs who have no lives of their own.” eGen objects to what they called a sweeping statement. “As with most inventions, blogging can be a helpful tool – it depends on why and how we use...
Singapire: Anti-Piracy
The fight against piracy continues in Singapore. The Recording Industry Association Singapore (RIAS) collaborated with the police to arrest 3 people for sharing their music collections on the net. Under Singapore's new anti-piracy laws, the trio can face up to 5 years jail time or a S$10,000 fine each.
Taiwan: Blog Tag & Maslow
Huitabbychen who blogs at www.wretch.cc links Blog Tag to psychologist Abraham Maslow‘s Hierarchy of Needs theory… “Human being's sense of safety will only come about after their biological needs are fulfilled, which results in a sense of belonging.” Bloggers are said to be following the same pattern of needs fulfilment....