7 June 2007

Stories from 7 June 2007

Thailand: Visiting Tiger Cave Temple in Krabi

  7 June 2007

Thaizer encourages visitors to Krabi to try going to the nearby Tiger Cave Temple. “Set in a tropical forest 10 kms outside of Krabi Town, the main cave and temple is interesting without being particularly special”

Cambodia: Vietnam Stops Sand Export

  7 June 2007

Socheta at KI Media translates a Radio Free Asia story that says Vietnam is not allowing Cambodia to ship sand to Singapore. Singapore usually imports sand from larger South East Asian neighbors for its construction projects. Vietnam is citing environmental damage to Mekong river as the reason for its action.

Egypt: Banned Documentary, Cairo Metro Strike, Torture Trial and More

It's all happening in Egypt - from the release of jailed bloggers, to the trial of corrupt officers implicated in torture videos which are spreading like a bush on fire on the Internet. Freedom for Egyptians brings us the latest from the Egyptian blogs in this round up which includes a story on the banning of a video on the Baha'i faith and a metro strike in down town Cairo.

Japan: Surveillance of Citizen Groups

  7 June 2007

Japan Observer compares coverage of revelations that “a special Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF) unit conducted surveillance against citizens’ groups and political parties opposed to the dispatch of JSDF troops to Iraq”, noting that, whereas the newspaper Asahi shimbun devoted the entire editorial page to the issue, Yomiuri shimbun buried...

Korea: Have You Ever Killed a Person?

  7 June 2007

A sixteen year-old Korean girl who became famous due to the extreme success of losing weight killed herself. To please her grandmother who was worried about her grand-daughter’s heavy weight, the girl lost about 40 kilograms in three months. Her story was introduced on a TV entertainment program. At that...

Liberia: drama at Charles Taylor's trial

  7 June 2007

Latest from Charles Taylor blog: “In a dramatic opening to the Charles Taylor trial today, the man long-awaited to confront criminal charges brought against him in the Hague elected not to appear. And his lawyer, Karim Khan, interrupted the opening statement of the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s Chief Prosecutor,...

Iran:False Obsession over being Aryan

IranianTruth reports when in the world have Iranians ever obsessed about being “Aryan”? This clearly seems like a modern phenomenon born out a sense of inferiority to Western nations. The man correctly noted that if we look at the vast majority of our past dynasties had no ethnic tie to...

Japan: The Matsuoka Suicide

  7 June 2007

The story is now over a week old, and yet the sensational suicide of Agriculture Minister Matsuoka Toshikatsu, who hung himself in his apartment on May 28th and later died in hospital, is continuing to ripple through Japanese society. As others have noted elsewhere, while the rate of suicide within...

Iran:Students support jailed workers

According to[Fa] Kaargar blog,some students in Amir Kabir University started to collect money for 3 jailed workers.Students are going to ask money one by one because security forces do not let them to collect money in an organized way.

Hong Kong: Art Painting Removed in University

  7 June 2007

This is probably the reason why Hong Kong can never be successful in creativity. Byran blogs an incident that a painting by one of the Master of Fine Art (MFA) student was forced to remove by the school administration because nudity is a problem. You can check out the painting...

China: Chengdu Classified Ads

  7 June 2007

A tiny classified advertisement paying respect for the ‘strong mothers’ of the Tiananmen managed to publish at Chengdu Daily on June 4. DANWEI translated a short note of wang xiao feng's comment on learning history.

China: SMS charged

  7 June 2007

A resident near Tai-hu sent out a SMS message that the water in the highly polluted lake contains cancer causing element 200 higher than standard level. He was detained for 10 days under the charge of disturbing public order. Wei Ying Jie from my 1510 criticised that such suppression of...

Japan: More vulnerable to disasters

  7 June 2007

Paul Nicholls from Japundit blogs a government report on Japan's vulnerability to natural disasters: it is is increasing as skyscrapers mushroom in cities, shopping malls go underground and the population ages.

Japan: Ancient Japan Blog

  7 June 2007

K. M. Lawson from Japan history blog posted his brief interview the writer of Ancient Japan Weblog: the material appearing on the blog stretches from the Jomon to the Kofun period.

Bahrain: Defamation Case Thrown Out of Court

“The High Court dismissed a defamation case brought by the president of the Arabian Gulf University Dr Rafia Ghubash against journalist Hisham Al-Zayani. I wish to offer my congratulations to Mr. Al-Zayani for winning the case, even though the decision has taken over 2 years to be determined. This rare...

Israel: First Day in the Army

“My daughter was drafted yesterday into the army. I thought there would be more fanfare – ceremonies, large crowds, music, speeches. There were just a few families there with their about-to-be-soldier daughters at the place where we were at in Jerusalem. “We (her father, boyfriend, sister and I) looked at...

Palestine: Israel Investigating Soldier

“Israel is Investigating soldier use of Palestinian human shields. Remember the video that showed some IOF using some Palestinian Youths as Human Shields in Nablus? Finaly, Israel is now investigating soldier for this crime. I have no doubt that the soldiers will face no charges or get sentence for such...

Jordan: What's Next for Facebook

“The supposedly simple answer is finding a way to make money for the site owners- to sustain and develop the service- and for users- along the lines of Google Adsense and other profitable tools used by bloggers. Why? Because holding a user’s interest in this age of cluttered media and...