Emerging from a meeting with a senior government minister on Friday afternoon, Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed today’s surprise announcement by President Thein Sein that he had suspended the controversial Myitsone dam project in Kachin State.Suu Kyi met with Aung Kyi, the minister of labor and minister of social welfare, relief and resettlement, for about one hour today at the Sane Lae Kan Thar state guesthouse in Rangoon. Among the issues discussed were an amnesty for political prisoners, cooperation on efforts to conserve the Irrawaddy River, and ways to achieve peace with Burma’s ethnic armed groups.
“I’ve heard that the president sent a message about the suspension of the Myitsone project on the Irrawaddy River in response to the public’s concerns. It’s very good that the government listens to the voice of the people, as that is what they should do,” Suu Kyi said to reporters after the meeting.
Dawn:
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Saturday urged “relevant countries to guarantee the lawful and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies”.“The Myitsone power station is a jointly invested project between China and Myanmar” and it has been “rigorously examined by both sides”, Hong said in a statement.
Hong called for both sides to “properly handle” the matter through “friendly consultations”.
Beijing and the Myanmar government have a close relationship and the comments are a rare public display of discord between them.
This — in the context of Kaplan’s recently-cracked-open Monsoon — is fascinating.
For more on the project, here’s the wikipedia page.
Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan tweets/files a story about 1700 villagers losing their harvest and land in a land grab.
GET THESE NEWS ROUND-UPS OFF MY LAWN: South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has been snooping around on gmail, Congress “is about to underfund the very tools that will tell them how federal money is being spent,” Japanese swimmers swim to Taiwan to deliver a thank you note, calls are being made for democratic reform in Vietnam, Pakistan’s ambassador to China writes of Pakistan-China trade relations, CFR’s Max Boot makes the case for change in Bahrain, and World Politics Review takes a look at the Turkish Navy.
Photo via.
“I’ve heard from other reporters Xinjiang/Kashgar is pretty easy to report from these days; not for Al JAzeera. The translator will not be working with us anymore. We are going to Kinjian to cover the Eurasia Expo trade fair. This is absolutely out of line. Absolutely out of line. China says it is pouring in billions into Xinjiang. Why won’t they let us go and see this investment for ourselves? Our translator just called. He was dragged into the police station at 11:30 pm last night. His family intimidated. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, I’m livid. Our driver canceled on us, too. Everyone has been intimidated.”
More to come later today, but here are some news stories: someone received one vote to become Japan’s next Prime Minister last night, consumer confidence has dropped, China wants to boost secret detention powers, the demand for Italian bonds are currently weak, and Euro-zone consumer confidence has dipped.
Photo via.
Ai Weiwei finds China’s capital is a prison where people go mad.(Photo credit: Reuters/David Gray)
via The Washington Post —
“A Chinese documentary that showed off the military’s ability to conduct a cyberattack against a U.S.-based site appears to have been removed from the Web site of state-run TV.
Meantime, Chinese officials are insisting that the clip was nothing but the workings of an imaginative producer.
The clip was part of a state-run documentary on cyberwarfare, and it appeared to show an unseen user conducting an attack on an Alabama-based Web site of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. At just six seconds, the clip offered what experts described.”
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Two YouTube comments to note —
1. Apparently China’s elite hackers are so good that they need a GUI and a big button that says “Attack” (it’s what the button on the lower left translates to).
2. 138.26.72.17 resolves to dali.chem.uab.edu, which is Birmingham.
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Previously: Industrial espionage / the destruction of 10,000 French computers / the hacking of/attempted hacking of India’s national security departments, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, global oil companies, the JSF program, German government computers, Google, Morgan Stanley, NATO, 103 country’s embassies.
Things On Twitter:
- Ahmadinejad and Khamenei rift appears to widen in Iran http://goo.gl/NunxC
- Cross-border team-teaching makes can make internationalization affordable: http://bit.ly/mmrCUd
- Direct democracy is global and spreading, though the flavour varies http://econ.st/gSPKKq
- Behind the scenes: How Hosni Mubarak really resigned http://fb.me/TOP40d0E
- Charlayne Hunter-Gault for The Root: ‘In Defense of South Africa’. Worth the read: http://tinyurl.com/5wdmdsy
- “Why Failed States Shouldn’t Be Our Biggest National Security Fear,” #CFR’s Patrick in the @WashingtonPost: http://on.cfr.org/fdow6Y
- #China studies $13 bln investment in Spain banks http://reut.rs/dOPcur - Reuters
China’s Ghost Cities and Malls – fascinating short documentary about abnormalities in China’s real estate market
(via Open Culture)
Five Links:
- Update: The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP #OilSpill http://ht.ly/1Wuvf
- France and Japan propose an ‘IPCC for nature’ http://bit.ly/dmCB6c
- Holy &$%. Taliban executed a 7 year old boy as an informant? http://ow.ly/1Wvsh
- Budget cuts imperil Virginia’s largest and most welcoming university http://bit.ly/aEhzPg
- Chinese Exports Rise 48.5 Percent http://nyti.ms/c5fPet
Ezra Klein is in China:
The obvious question with this sort of rapid development is what happens to the people who had the shack that sat on the land where the government wanted to put condos? The answer, at least in Dalian, was that they bought the previous inhabitants off. A conversation with some residents revealed that they didn’t just get one free apartment in the new building. They got four free apartments, three of which they were now renting out. And medical coverage. And money for furnishings. And a food stipend. And — I’m not kidding, by the way — birthday cakes on their birthdays. Sweet deal.
— via.
Joe Wong — who has been featured on this blog before (one, two, three); we performed with him once, too — sent out an e-mail the other day, and it — in light of the recent Brazil and Pakistan posts — is worth re-posting:
Final note: While it is a distinct honor to be featured on the front page of Wall Street Journal, I would like to offer my opinions on some of the points made in the article.
1. The article stated, “But in China, there ‘s no humor in misfortune.” In America, it is said that “Comedy is tragedy plus time” It is also true in China. One of the most popular routines is about the thoughts of a guy trapped in a tiger den at a zoo (虎口遐想). During the golden age of standup in the 1980’s, many routines were based on people’s suffering during the culture revolution in the 60’s and 70’s.
If you have been to any comedy clubs in the United States, you probably know that if the comedian says, “I just broke up with my boyfriend….” American audience will respond with sympathy too. It’s not like American audience laugh at just any misfortune.
2. I don’t believe that humor doesn’t translate. Mark Twain’s humor was in both Chinese and English text books in China. Recently my performance at the RTCA dinner appeared on several Chinese websites and had 2.5 million views on one site alone. I received many emails from China saying how much they enjoyed it.
My performance in Beijing early 2008 was the first and the only gig I performed in Chinese in front of a small crowd of 50-60 people in a 300 seat theater. I translated my jokes from English to Chinese for about 7 minutes. From that very limited experience, I felt certain jokes that play on logic went well. For example, the joke, “If I were to die in a car accident, I want it to be a collision with a cement truck. That way immediately after I die, there is a statue of me.” People applauded that joke. But jokes that rely on word play and cultural subcontext wouldn’t.
Furthermore, one can’t make such sweeping conclusions about differences in people’s senses of humor based on one show I had in Chinese, and some shows by Judy Carter in Hong Kong in English. And just to be clear, my first show in China is more successful than my first show in America 8 years ago.
In short, I believe that humor comes from the same core in each culture and each person. Depending on the traditions and cultures of different countries, it takes on different forms.
