Open Letter: A Sikh Leader Begs Clinton To Intervene In India

Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh reminds Hillary Clinton that her husband has condemned the murder of Sikhs during his visit to India in the year 2000, and accuses the Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir, tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims throughout the country.



The Honorable Hillary Clinton

Secretary of State

Government of The United States
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary of State Madam Clinton,

Congratulations on becoming the U.S. Secretary of State. Yours is a very important job, protecting the people of the United States by carrying out diplomacy and foreign policy to protect our national security.

I know that you are aware of the troubled situation in South Asia. As you know, India and Pakistan have had a longstanding dispute. You may remember when an Indian official was quoted as saying that Pakistan should be made part of India. You may also remember that it was India that set off the nuclear arms race in South Asia.

You may also have noted that India opposed your action sending Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to the region and that it publicly told President Obama to stay out of the situation in the region.

You are also aware of the repression of minorities in India. Your husband, former President Clinton, wrote in the foreword to Madeleine Albright’s book about the massacre in Chithisinghpora:

“During my visit to India in 2000, some Hindu militants decided to vent their outrage by murdering 38 Sikhs in cold blood. If I hadn’t made the trip, the victims would probably still be alive. If I hadn’t made the trip because I feared what militants might do, I couldn’t have done my job as president of the United States.”

The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir, tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims throughout the country, and tens of thousands of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, and others.

A report issued by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR) shows that India admitted that it held 52,268 political prisoners under the repressive “Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act” (TADA) even though it expired in 1995.

Additionally, according to Amnesty International, there are tens of thousands of other minorities being held as political prisoners. MASR report quotes the Punjab Civil Magistracy as writing “if we add up the figures of the last few years the number of innocent persons killed would run into lakhs [hundreds of thousands.]”

The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government’s murders of Sikhs “worse than genocide.”

I urge you to use your influence as Secretary of State to end the repression of minorities in India.

As you know, many minorities, including the Sikhs of Khalistan, the Christians of Nagalim, the Muslims of Kashmir, and others throughout the subcontinent, are fighting for their freedom from India. In all, there are 17 freedom movements. I call for the release of all of India’s political prisoners. In addition, I respectfully urge the Administration to support a free and fair plebiscite on the issue of independence for Khalistan. There should also be similar plebiscites for Kashmir, Nagaland, and every other nation that seeks its freedom from Indian rule. It is essential that the United States use its influence to promote its ideals of freedom.

Thank you for your attention and congratulations again on becoming Secretary of State.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh
President
Council of Khalistan

CC: Secretariat, G-8 member countries.


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Brutal Killings In Kashmir

When the world is paying attention to what was happening during Nov. 26-Nov. 30, 2008 in Mumbai where about a dozen of militants attacked the Indian financial center. People should open their eyes and put the incident in a larger background.

In India, Hindus kill Muslims, Hindus kill Christians, Muslims kill Hindus, Government kills people in Kashmir who want their freedom, Government kills Maoists who are struggling for their very basic living, government kills seperatists who want their own rights on their own land, ........ Two words can describe India precisely: Big chaos. Don't believe what I am saying, go to use google for yourself.

Here is a report about what is happening in Kashmir.


2261 women martyred, 22671 widowed, 9843 molested in IHK

Srinagar, November 25 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, 2261 women were among 92670 civilian martyred during the last 19 years due to the unabated acts of Indian state terrorism. Indian troops molested 9843 women during the period and the state terrorism rendered 22671 women widowed.

This has been revealed in a report issued today by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service on the occasion of “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women”. The report maintained that Kashmiri women have been one of the worst affectees of the harrowing conflict in the occupied territory since January 1989.

According to the report, Indian troops have been routinely involved in sexual harassment of Kashmiri women to suppress the ongoing liberation struggle. It further pointed out that although men have been subjected to the cases of disappearances largely, but women have been adversely affected because of being related to the disappeared persons as wives, daughters, mothers and sisters. The report stated that women constitute a considerable number of mental patients, which is well over one hundred thousand, due to the violence perpetrated by the troops. Source

Man Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga lays bare the truth of India's poverty

　　India, which for decades after independence was shackled in the Western imagination to images of grinding poverty, is suddenly seen through the equally distorting lens of Bollywood glitz and Bangalore call centres; headline-grabbing corporate takeovers and endless seminars discussing when (not if) India will become the next global superpower.

　　In the space of a decade, the poor of India - who today still account for as many as 800 million of the country's 1.1 billion population - have been virtually erased from our perception of the world's largest democracy.

　　But enter now, centre-stage, after winning the Man Booker prize, 33-year-old Aravind Adiga and his novel The White Tiger.

　　A book which, if the critics are to be believed, lays bare the troubled reality of modern India to a world that has become so entranced by the mantra of its economic ''miracle" that it has forgotten the grinding reality of life for most Indians.

　　The novel certainly affected the chairman of the judges, Michael Portillo, who said that the book about a poor, rural rickshawallah being corrupted by his move to the big city, had challenged his own assumptions about India and poverty itself.

　　"It changed my view of certain things," he said, explaining why Adiga's book had won, "like what is the real India and what is the nature of poverty."

　　Stories have always trumped statistics when it comes to getting a message across, and Adiga's novel, which his publishers reckon could sell 500,000 copies in Britain alone, has the power to encourage the world to take a more realistic view of modern India in all its corrupt complexity.

　　But while facts and figures might be dry compared with Adiga's narrative, they are also worth repeating because they reveal how India's economic success has failed to deliver enough to the country's poor.

　　Despite the much-vaunted decades of seven per cent economic growth, and the rise of a middle class, the ''dark side", (Mr Portillo's phrase) of India remains.

　　In modern, nuclear-capable India, 63 infants die per 1,000 live births. In war-torn Eritrea the figure is 45. In India, 400 out of 100,000 women die in childbirth. In Botswana, the figure is 100.

　　And despite a decade of economic expansion, a staggering 47 per cent of India's under-threes remain malnourished.

　　Only on Wednesday, an international study found that the level of hunger in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is comparable with that of war-ravaged Ethiopia. Punjab, the best-placed in the survey of 17 Indian states, still ranks below Gabon, Honduras and Vietnam.

　　It is this kind of poverty that forces millions of poor Indians to migrate every year to the slums of cities such as Mumbai, India's commercial and entertainment capital, where nearly half the population live in stinking, narrow-alleyed shanties.

　　It isn't just the smell of human faeces that makes the outsider dizzy, but the jarring proximity of those rich and poor worlds which, thanks to the prevalence of television and migration to the cities, are now starting to collide in India.

　　One encounter during my four years in India as The Daily Telegraph's correspondent illustrates the widening gulf.

　　I spent a day interviewing a young man and his wife, Subir and Shenaz, who made their living sorting rubbish in a Mumbai slum near the city's airport.

　　For 12, sometimes 16 hours a day, they sifted Mumbai's household waste for metal scraps - a bed spring, the aluminium collar of a light bulb, a copper solenoid from an old transistor radio - anything that might be worth a few rupees from a scrap dealer.

　　They lived in conditions in which Europeans are not allowed to keep animals. Their ''house" was a wooden box no more than 10ft square, perched on the edge of an open sewer.

　　Here they sat sifting hour after hour, Shenaz, herself running a fever in the Mumbai summer heat, nursing a sickly baby as she worked, actually and metaphorically at the bottom of India's billion-man economic dust-heap.

　　Surely village life was preferable to this, I wondered? Shenaz smiled. "Here we eat every night," she said, "and, until I fell sick, we even saved some money." She hadn't come to Mumbai for pity or charity - there was none on offer if she'd wanted it - but for opportunities that her rural village could never give her or her child.

　　Subir explained that they had hoped Mumbai was going to provide them with a better life, but that he'd spent all his money paying bribes at the local state hospital to get treatment which, legally, he should have had for free.

　　It was a story typical of the petty corruption that blights the lives of India's impoverished masses. One day, the couple said, they wanted their child to go to school and learn to read and write - something they had never been given the chance to do.

　　The couple were angry. Looming over their hovel on the gantry of a nearby flyover was the grinning face of India's playboy billionaire, Vijay Mallya, owner of the Kingfisher beer brand and often described as "India's Richard Branson".

　　From a giant billboard Mr Mallya could be seen exhorting Mumbai's upper classes to "Fly the Good Times" on his recently launched airline, itself a beacon of the new, booming India.

　　So what, I wondered, did Subir think of that poster? Did he find it an inspiring emblem of a new, prosperous India or a galling, taunting reminder of the fact that there was absolutely no chance that he'd ever be ''flying the good times" in one of the planes that came thundering over the tin roof of his shack every five minutes.

　　He didn't take long to give his answer. "I don't want to go flying in a plane," he said, "I just want enough money to eat and to buy medicine for my wife. One day I want my son to go to school. Today I cannot even afford to give her a sweet for the Eid festival. There is no honour in this life."

　　None of this is to understate the undoubted progress India has made over the past two decades, but merely to temper the notion that India is on the cusp of becoming a developed nation, where poverty will be eradicated and everyone has a mobile phone.

　　The fact is that hundreds of millions of Indians live, like Subir and Shenaz, a barely sustainable existence. Amid all the celebration of India's progress, Adiga's novel will perhaps provide a reminder to the wider world of how far India still has to come.




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Indian Economy Is In Trouble

India's industry, Infrastructure growth nosedives

Amidst crisis in the global financial markets, India on Friday reported a sharp drop in industrial growth to 1.3 per cent in August from a high of 10.9 a year-ago.

The manufacturing sector put out a dismal performance growing by a mere 1.1 per cent as against 10.7 per cent in the same period a year ago.

The growth in key infrastructure industries too dipped to 2.3 per cent in August 2008, compared with 9.5 per cent in the same period last year.

The cement sector declined to 1.9 per cent against 16.7 per cent in August 2007, while coal output dropped to 5.9 per cent compared with 8 per cent in the corresponding year.

Finished (carbon) steel growth also declined to 4.4 per cent in August, from 9.6 per cent in the same month last year.

For the April-August period of 2008-09, crude oil production registered a negative growth of 0.9 per cent, against one per cent during the same period last year, while petroleum refinery products dropped to 4.8 per cent from a healthy 10.4 per cent in the same period last year.

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Weakening currency

The weak currency ended Oct. 8 at 48 rupees to the dollar, its lowest level in 5½ years. The rupee has taken a 21% dive since January.

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The currency reached a record low of 49.26 per dollar in intraday trading on Fridaqy (10-10-2008).

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Stock market is in nerve

On Friday, Except Ranbaxy Laboratories and State Bank of India, all the other 28 stocks in the Sensex basket ended lower. Among the major losers, Reliance Communications crashed 21.02% at Rs237.40, ICICI Bank plunged 19.71% at Rs364.10, Reliance Infrastructure slumped 19.26% at Rs515.30 and JP Associates crumbled 16.27% at Rs76.15. Tata Steel plummeted 14.99% at Rs287.50, Hindalco Industries dropped 11.18% at Rs80.65, HDFC shed 8.98% at Rs1719.20, DLF tanked 8.79% at Rs281.65, BHEL declined 8.28% at Rs1,345.85 and Larsen & Toubro lost 8.02% at Rs889.15. Other heavyweights also came under sustained selling pressure and lost around 5-7% each.

Realty stocks were battered the worst. Orbit Corporation tanked nearly 19.45% at Rs87.50, IndiaBulls Real Estate plummeted 19.45% at Rs95.45, Mahindra Lifespace Developers slumped 17.49% at Rs211.55, Peninsula Land dropped 16.05% at Rs28.25, Anant Raj Industries lost 15.07% at Rs80 and Unitech slipped by 12.38% at Rs82.80. Akruti City, Omaxe, Parsvnath Developers and Phoenix Mills declined over 1-8% each.

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Indian Satyam banned from World Bank For Installing Spyware

NEW YORK: Satyam Computer Services has reportedly been banned from doing any off-shore work with the World Bank after the Bank's forensic experts discovered that spy software was covertly installed on workstations inside the bank's Washington headquarters, allegedly by one or more contractors from Satyam Computer Services.

According to a Fox News report, the forensic analysis was conducted after a major breach of the bank's treasury network in Washington in April this year. Upon its discovery, insiders report, bank officials shut off the data link between Washington and Chennai, India, where Satyam has long operated the bank's sole offshore computer centre responsible for all of the bank's financial and human resources information.

Satyam was also banned from any future work with the bank. "I want them off the premises now," Zoellick reportedly told his deputies, according to Fox News. But at the urging of CIO De Poerck, Satyam employees remained at the bank as recently as Oct 1 while it engaged in "knowledge transfer" with two new India-based contractors. The software enabled every character typed on a keyboard to be transmitted to a still-unknown location via the internet.

Fox News claims that outsiders have raided the World Bank Group's computer network, one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation, repeatedly for more than a year. It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution's highly restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank's network for nearly a month in June and July.

The contract, which began at $10 million and grew to more than $100 million by 2007, was suddenly not renewed this year.

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India's Economy Hits the Wall

Growth is slipping, stocks are down 40%, and foreign stock market investors are fleeing. Businessmen blame the ruling coalition for failing to make reforms.

Just six months ago, India was looking good. Annual growth was 9%, corporate profits were surging 20%, the stock market had risen 50% in 2007, consumer demand was huge, local companies were making ambitious international acquisitions, and foreign investment was growing. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the forward march of this Asian nation.

But stop it has. In the past month, India has joined the list of the wounded. The country is reeling from 11.4% inflation, large government deficits, and rising interest rates. Foreign investment is fleeing, the rupee is falling, and the stock market is down over 40% from the year's highs. Most economic forecasts expect growth to slow to 7%—a big drop for a country that needs to accelerate growth, not reduce it. "India has gone from hero to zero in six months," says Andrew Holland, head of proprietary trading at Merrill Lynch India (MER) in Mumbai. Many in India worry that the country's hard-earned investment-grade rating will soon be lost and that the gilded growth story has come to an end.

Global circumstances—soaring oil prices and the subprime crisis that dried up the flow of foreign funds—are certainly to blame. But so is New Delhi. Much of the crisis India faces today could have been avoided by skillful planning. India imports 75% of its oil to meet demand, which have grown exponentially as its economy expands. The government also subsidizes 60% of the price of such fuels as diesel. In 2007, when inflation was a low 3%, economists such as Standard & Poor's Subir Gokarn urged New Delhi to start cutting subsidies. Instead, the populist ruling Congress government spent $25 billion on waiving loans made to farmers and hiking bureaucrats' salaries.

Botched Opportunities
Now those expenditures, plus an additional $25 billion on upcoming fertilizer subsidies, is adding $100 billion a year—or 10% of India's gross domestic product, or equivalent to the country's entire collection of income taxes—to the national bill. This at a time when India needs urgently to spend $500 billion on new infrastructure and more on upgrading education and health-care facilities. The government's official debt, which dropped below 6% of gross domestic product last year, will now be closer to 10% this year. "Starting last year, the government missed key opportunities" to fix the economy, says Gokarn. In fact, he adds, "there has been no significant reform done at all in the past four years"—the time the Congress coalition has been in power.

Even the most bullish on India are hard-pressed to recall any significant economic reforms made in the recent past. A plan to build 30 Special Economic Zones is virtually suspended because New Delhi has not sorted out how to acquire the necessary land, a major issue in both urban and rural India, without a major social and political upheaval. Agriculture, distorted by fertilizer subsidies and technologically laggard, is woefully unproductive. Simple and nonpolitical reforms, like strengthening the legal system and adding more judges to the courtrooms, have been ignored.

A June 16 report by Goldman Sachs' (GS) Jim O'Neill and Tushar Poddar, Ten Things for India to Achieve Its 2050 Potential, is a grim reminder that India has fallen to the bottom of the four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in its growth scores, due largely to government inertia. The report states that India's rice yields are a third those of China and half of Vietnam's. While 60% of the country's labor force is employed in agriculture, farming contributes less than 1% to overall growth. The report urges India to improve governance, raise educational achievement, and control inflation. It also advises reining in profligate expenditures, liberalizing its financial markets, increasing agricultural productivity, and improving infrastructure, the environment, and energy use. "The will to implement all these needs leadership," points out Poddar. "We have a government in New Delhi with the best brains, the dream team," he says, referring to Oxford-educated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Harvard-educated Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. "If they don't deliver, then what?"

Disillusioned Business
More worried than most are India's businessmen, who have turned in stellar performances with their investment and entrepreneurial drive and begun to look like multinational players. For them, there's plenty at stake. But lack of infrastructure, from new ports to roads, along with an undeveloped corporate bond market and high prices for real estate, commodities, and talent, are causing them to hit "choke points and structural impediments all over. We will lose years," says Bombay investor Chetan Parikh of of Jeetay Investments.

Sanjay Kirloskar, chief executive of Kirloskar Brothers (KRBR.BO), a premier $470 million maker of water pumps, already has $100 million in overseas contracts. Yet few infrastructure contracts have come from New Delhi. Kirloskar had hoped to be part of a grand project linking India's rivers, but those plans have been on hold for four years. "The infrastructure growth we had hoped for has not come about," he says. "Instead, we will now expand overseas more than in India."

Such constraints on growth at home will have an impact. Corporate earnings growth is likely to dip, says Merrill Lynch's Holland, who now predicts just 10% growth, instead of the previous year's 20%. That slowdown makes it less attractive for foreigners to invest in India's stock market. Already this year, foreigners have taken $5.5 billion out of the market, compared with the $19 billion they invested last year. Gagan Banga, chief executive of India Bulls Financial Services, an emerging finance and real estate giant, points admiringly to China's ability to maintain its growth momentum for a decade, while India's has not been able to hold up for even three years. "Serious companies are going to grow at a much slower pace, and some may even de-grow this year," he says. Unless major policy decisions are made by New Delhi immediately to keep the economy on the growth path, he says, "India will slow down even further."

New Delhi defends its four year reign in India. "We've had 9% growth for four years in a row," says Sanjaya Baru, media adviser to Prime Minister Singh. "That is unprecedented." He attributes it to the increasing rate of investment, up from 28% of GDP to 35% currently, "close to most ASEAN economies," though he admits that a large part is from the private sector. "Yes, there is a fiscal problem, but there's a price to be paid for coalition politics," adds Baru. So having growth drop "from 9% to 7% is not grim."

Social Backlash?
Chetan Modi, head of Moody's India, says the increasingly high cost of doing business in India may force global investors who had set up base in India—especially financial-services players—to move to more affordable and efficient hubs, such as Singapore and Hong Kong. If the economy slows and inflation continues to accelerate, says Sherman Chan, economist at Moody's Economy.com, "social unrest is possible."

In fact, India is becoming a dangerous social cauldron. The wealth harvested by the reforms of previous governments has made itself evident in the luxury cars and apartments in India's big cities, leaving much of India full of aspirations but few means to achieve them. There is a severe shortage of colleges, yet a plan to build 1,500 universities gathers dust. The Communists in the ruling coalition are against both globalization and industrialization, so without new factories being built, employment growth has been almost stagnant, rising to just 2%—a disappointing rate in a country where an estimated 14 million youths enter the workforce every year, but just 1 million get jobs in the regulated, above-ground economy.

Meanwhile, few expect any bold moves New Delhi, especially with national elections due in 2009 and five important state elections scheduled before the end of this year. Thus far, the ruling Congress party's record has been poor; it has lost almost every state election this year and is likely to lose all five of the upcoming ones.

The big hope for a return to the course of reform in India, businessmen hope, will be a new government in New Delhi next year. The gravest danger is that India's messy coalition politics will bring into power another indecisive alliance that will keep the country in policy limbo for another five years. If so, says S&P's Gokarn, it's a meltdown scenario: growth slipping below 6.5%, accelerating the chances of India reverting to its 1991 status when it was plunged into a balance-of-payments crisis.

Source:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2008/gb2008071_743900.htm

Nearly 80 pct of India lives on half dollar a day

Seventy-seven percent of Indians -- about 836 million people -- live on less than half a dollar a day in one of the world's hottest economies, a government report said.

The state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) said most of those living on below 20 rupees (50 US cents) per day were from the informal labour sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty.

"For most of them, conditions of work are utterly deplorable and livelihood options extremely few," said the report, entitled "Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector", seen by Reuters on Friday.

"Such a sordid picture co-exists uneasily with a shining India that has successfully confronted the challenge of globalisation powered by economic competition both within the country and across the world."

Around 26 percent of India's population lives below the poverty line, which is defined as 12 rupees per day, said officials.

Economic liberalisation since the early 1990s has created a 300 million-strong middle class and led to an average annual economic growth of 8.6 percent over the last four years, but millions of the country's poor remain untouched by the boom.

According to the report, based on data from 2004-2005, 92 percent of India's total workforce of 457 million were employed as agricultural labourers and farmers, or in jobs such as working in quarries, brick kilns or as street vendors.

The report said the majority of those working and living under "miserable conditions" were lower castes, tribal people and Muslims and the most disadvantaged of these were women, migrant workers and children.

"This is the other world which can be characterised as the India of the Common People, constituting more than three-fourths of the population and consisting of all those whom the growth has, by and large, bypassed," said the report.

The NCEUS report, which was presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday, recommends the government provide social security benefits such as maternity and medical expenses as well as pensions to people working in the unorganised sector.

Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSDEL218894

Guardian: Down with the Dalai Lama

By Brendan O'Neill

Why do western commentators idolise a celebrity monk who hangs out with Sharon Stone and once guest-edited French Vogue?

Has there ever been a political figure more ridiculous than the Dalai Lama? This is the "humble monk" who forswears worldly goods in favour of living a simple life dressed in maroon robes. Yet in 1992 he guest-edited French Vogue, the bible of the decadent high-fashion classes, which is packed with pictures of the half-starved daughters of the aristocracy modelling skirts and shirts that most of us could never afford.

He claims to be the current incarnation of the Tulkus line of Buddhist masters, who are "exempt from the wheel of death and rebirth". Yet he's best known for hanging out with clueless western celebs like Richard Gere and Sharon Stone (who is still most famous for showing her vagina on the big screen). Stone once introduced the Dalai Lama at a glittering fundraising ball as "Mr Please, Please, Please Let Me Back Into China!"

The Dalai Lama says he wants Tibetan autonomy and political independence. Yet he allows himself to be used as a tool by western powers keen to humiliate China. Between the late 1950s and 1974, he is alleged to have received around $15,000 a month, or $180,000 a year, from the CIA. He has also been, according to the same reporter, "remarkably nepotistic", promoting his brothers and their wives to positions of extraordinary power in his fiefdom-in-exile in Dharamsala, northern India.

He poses as the quirky, giggly, modern monk who once auctioned his Land Rover on eBay for $80,000 and has even done an advert for Apple (quite what skinny white computers have got to do with Buddhism is anybody's guess). Yet in truth he is a product of the crushing feudalism of archaic, pre-modern Tibet, where an elite of Buddhist monks treated the masses as serfs and ruthlessly punished them if they stepped out of line.

The Dalai Lama demands religious freedom. Yet he persecutes a Buddhist sect that worships a deity called Dorje Shugden. He outlawed praying to Dorje Shugden in 1996, and those who defied his writ were thrown out of their jobs, mocked in the streets and even had their homes smashed up by heavy-handed officials from his government-in-exile. When worshippers complained about their treatment, they were told by representatives of the Dalai Lama that "concepts like democracy and freedom of religion are empty when it comes to the wellbeing of the Dalai Lama".

As the Dalai Lama tours Britain, lots of people are asking: why won't Brown receive him at Downing Street? I have a different question: why should Brown, who for all his troubles is still the head of an elected political party, meet with an authoritarian, fame-chasing, Apple-loving monk?

The Dalai Lama has effectively been turned into a cartoon good guy. In America and western Europe, where backward anti-modern sentiments are widespread amongst self-loathing sections of the educated and the elite, the Dalai Lama has been embraced as a living, breathing representative of unsullied goodness. Despite the fact that he advertises Apple, guest-edits Vogue and drives a Land Rover, he is held up as evidence that living the simple eastern life is preferable to, in the words of Philip Rawson, westerners' "gradually more pointless pursuit of material satisfactions". Just as earlier generations of disillusioned aristocrats fell in love with a fictional version of Tibet (Shangri-La), so contemporary un-progressives idolise a fictional image of the Dalai Lama.

Most strikingly, the Dalai Lama is used as a battering ram by western governments in their culture war with China. The reason he is flattered by world leaders and bankrolled by the CIA is not because these institutions care very much for liberty in Tibet, but rather because they want to ratchet up international pressure on their new competitors in world politics: the Chinese. You don't have to be a defender of the authoritarian regime in Beijing (and I most certainly am not) to see that such global sabre-rattling is more likely to entrench tensions between the Tibetan people and China, and increase instability in world affairs, rather than herald anything like a new era of freedom in the east.

Far from "helping Tibet", the slavish western worshippers of the Dalai Lama are helping to stifle the development of a real, lively movement for liberty and democracy in the Tibetan regions. One author on the Tibetan independence movement argues that "the Dalai Lama's role as ultimate spiritual authority is holding back the political process of democratisation", since "the assumption that he occupies the correct moral ground from a spiritual perspective means that any challenge to his political authority may be interpreted as anti-religious".

At least one reason why the Dalai Lama can pose as "the ultimate spiritual authority" and all-round supreme leader of Tibetans and their future is because influential elements in the west have empowered him to play that role. In doing so, they have been complicit in the infantilisation of the Tibetan people. Tibetans now suffer the double horror of being ruled by undemocratic Chinese officials on one hand, and demeaned by the Dalai Lama and his western supporters on the other.


Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/29/downwiththedalailama

Video: Free Iraq, Free Tibet, Very Good Cause!!

The Real US Deficit With China – Knowledge

Americans are out of touch with today's China. It's a knowledge deficit that carries more weight in the long-term bilateral relationships between China and the United States than the ballooning US trade deficit with China. And as China makes a comeback on the world stage, it's one that the US should address.

Chinese visitors to the US have shared the shock of witnessing a severe dichotomy between how much Americans seem to talk about China and yet how little they know about it. The US status as the world's superpower, coupled with its location, warrants people this type of benign negligence.

But what about those experts who have the power to impose their perceptions of China on others? All too often China experts in the US cannot even speak the language. How can they claim to understand a culture without knowing how its people communicate?

This knowledge deficit accounts directly for widespread and deep-rooted misperceptions about China.

There are three faulty, recurring talking points in the American media.

First, China is a rising power, and a rising power is dangerous. The first part of this argument is incomplete, and the latter part is misplaced. China is not only a rising power; it is a returning power. China, as a united continental power, has existed for more than 2,000 years.

As a returning player, China is composed, restrained, and mature, just like a former champion returning to the title game after a short lapse. Also, if history is any guide, Chinese-ruling regimes have not been considered aggressive or expansive; they were famous for building walls. This fact alone should call into question the comparison of China's current resurgence with Japan's and Germany's disastrous rising path before World War II.

Second, China is a Communist country, and Communism is evil. Repeatedly placed upon China by media commentators, most notably CNN's anchorman Lou Dobbs, this characterization is both simplistic and utterly misleading.

To today's China, Marxism is as foreign as liberal democracy. When you look back at China's past, no alien cultures have uprooted Chinese tradition; instead, they were either localized, or submerged. China can still be Chinese without the Communism title.

Likewise, today's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could easily be renamed the Chinese Confucian Party (CCP) without changing much of its ideological belief or organizational structure, or even its acronym for that matter.

Both the "ruling by virtue" policy promoted by former President Jiang Zemin and the "harmonious society" guideline proposed by current leader Hu Jintao were derived more from the Confucian doctrine than from the Marxist ideology. Singling out "Communist" as the definer confuses the reality.

Third, Tiananmen Square in 1989 is an iconic image that lingers in the minds of the Chinese. American observers' obsession with this tragic event reflects how deep their perception gap about China runs. There is no question that what happened that summer was historic. However, it was a generation ago, and sea changes have occurred since then.

Those who were born in 1989 are turning 19. What this new Chinese generation cares about is not the guy who blocked those tanks, but the Chinese Super Girl Singer and Yao Ming. America's unyielding interest in Tiananmen is out of touch. Is the Watergate scandal still the dominant issue facing the US today?

This lack of updated information about China becomes more problematic in a larger context. Chinese students are required to study English beginning in primary school. Students are exposed to both American culture and the Western way of thinking by college. For at least two decades, tens of thousands of the best and the brightest Chinese students attend American's top-tier graduate schools, channeling back the most updated perceptions and information about the US.

Although the number of American students studying in China witnessed a huge jump over the past few years, the accumulated knowledge deficits and language barriers are still immense.

This imbalance of knowledge, just like the imbalance of trade, is unsustainable. With the trade problem, Chinese leaders outlined a "win-win partner" scenario, and American policymakers have mapped out the "responsible stakeholder" blueprint. However, no strategy will be feasible if the two parties cannot understand each other well enough to weather the uncertainties ahead.

It is highly probable that the next generation of Americans will live in a world where China is the largest economic power. Are they prepared? When and how are they going to fix this current knowledge deficit with China?

• Xu Wu is an assistant professor in strategic media and public relations at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He is the author of "Chinese Cyber Nationalism."

The article comes from http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0501/p09s02-coop.html

20000 Were Killed by Trains in Mumbai in 5 Years

Indian media often shout the human rights and democracy in India. But so what? A recent report shows that more than 20,000 people were killed by trains in Mumbai alone in 5 years.

Yes, I am not wrong. It is astonishing 20,000 ceased lives in India's finnacial captial and most rich city in a short 5 years. More ridiculously, If I am not wrong, the public transportation system in this "shining" city should be in the hands of an elected government.

India's Central and Western Railway was forced this week to release the harrowing data, showing at least 20,706 people have died over the past five years, after a Mumbai activist, Chetan Kothari, filed a request under the country's Right to Information Act.

The maximum deaths are due to people falling off crowded trains and electrocution of people sitting on the top of the train," Sharma said. He said many others were hit by trains when they tried to run across the tracks instead of using bridges.
. Source.

India, Please Take Care of Human Lives Before Talking Any Other Rights.

Video: Innocent Chinese killed by Riots in Lhasa, Xizang (Tibet)

Warning: Bloody and violent.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VF65NsxV_to

This is a recently released video. Those innocent people are Han, Muslims and Zang (Tibetan) people. They were killed by violent Dala Lama followers during the riots in March 2008, which Dala Lama and western media called "peaceful protest".

A Chinese Student lectures to French People During Demonstration, (in French)

I don't understand French language. But I saw Chinese translation of the lecture. He talked about the media bias against China and information manipulation by some politicians. I personally think it is a good one. I hope some French people can post their comments here. I prefer comments in English, but those in French are also welcomed.












The following is the Chinese version of his lecture.

　　女士们，先生们，亲爱的中法朋友们，你们好！


　　我想首先感谢巴黎人民和巴黎市警察局给了我们今天这次机会让我们聚集于此。这是罕见的一次，也是欧洲和法国历史上最大的华人集会。

　　我想代表从别的城市，乘坐大巴、火车和汽车，从几百公里以外自费赶来的朋友们说几句话。很多朋友没有能与我们相聚于此，但是我想替他们表达他们与我们一样的对中国、对法国、对法国人民，以及对中法友谊的关注。

　　在这次对中国的妖魔化的扭曲报道事件中，我们，全世界的中国留学生，我们感觉很痛，我们的感情受到了伤害，但是我们不怪法国人民，因为造成这样结果的责任人不是你们，而是一些不负责任的媒体和职业煽动家。

　　像所有行业一样，记者和媒体有自己要遵守的职业道德。媒体要求公正，客观，对所报道内容的核实，以及评论的适中。无论如何，也不能诽谤和诬蔑，没有证据地责难，扭曲事实。

　　在对最近发生的事情报道中，一些记者超出了他们原本的报道角色，完全变成了自认为拥有绝对真理的批判家，甚至把事件可笑地简单化。一个弱小而善良的受害者和一个巨大而残忍的暴徒。他们的角色从一开始就这样人为地被分配好了。

　　然后，记者们找寻各种方式和手段来证明这两个角色。比如说，选择性的阐述历史，认为中国的革命对中国不可分割的一部分是“侵略”，而故意不说95%受煎熬的藏人的黑暗的政教合一，把尼泊尔的警察当成是中国警察，用几十年前的照片来说今天的事情，传播根本没有验证的信息，比如根本没有可信度的所谓死亡人数，以及选用一些别有用心的人的口述。

　　那些外国游客的描述，和他们拍到的视频让我们看到暴徒对无故路人进行令人发指的暴力，没有一个媒体说这是对无辜者的施暴。更有甚者，一些不负责任的媒体制造并强迫人们接受一个根本没有任何可信和公正证据的“血腥镇压”的假设。

　　媒体很少邀请中国人在节目中阐述他们的观点，即使有也是把他放在被告的位置上，而另一方的则是在数量上几倍于他的“法官”。是，你可以批评中国政府在一段时间里不允许记者入藏，但是不能捏造不知道的事情。

　　这种处理西藏暴乱信息的方式，是一种媒体暴力，一种意识形态的欺骗行为，一种话语权的霸权，一种扭曲事实的宣传，一种无耻的欺骗。

　　首先受害者是法国人民，他们是多么的具有怜悯心和博爱，他们相信媒体，可不幸的是，他们被操纵和欺骗了。

　　西方的信息模式本来还是人们的一种效仿模式，它现在不再是了。没有人有权力操纵大众舆论，不能在中国，也不能在世界上任何地方。这是在所谓言论自由模式中的另一种压制言论自由的方式。

　　还有一些作为法国精英的政客的思维惰性，让我们无比震惊。

　　所谓人权，对某些人来说是圣战的号角，和一切有政治目的不负责任的煽动的盾牌，比如说对于罗伯特·梅纳尔（“无疆界记者”组织主席）。为什么此人在官塔那摩监狱里的酷刑不断重复，在伊拉克人被美军士兵侮辱的时候消失了？ 这是不是一种选择性的失明呢？

　　联合国教科文组织终止了对“无疆界记者”的支持，在一份公告中，联合国教科文组织解释说，无疆界记者多次在无客观所言地报道某些国家的过程中丧失了记者职业道德。

　　为什么呢？

　　从互联网上，同时也是我们的罗伯特先生承认的信息中，我们了解到“无疆界记者”的财政支持是源于一些与美国中央情报关系密切的组织。

　　我们，海外的中国学生，我们很心痛，我们的感情受到了伤害，但是我们并不怨恨法国人。

　　我们是两个截然不同的世界之间经验与信息交换的桥梁，我们也是这场文化、思想，尤其是政治冲突最先的受害者。

　　在国内的中国人非常相信我们这些留学生对国外的见解。他们对于国外的认识和印象取决于这个留学生群体的感觉。

　　面对捏造或者说传递虚假消息的西方媒体的指责，我们这些学生中的很多人开始反击，在互联网上辩论并呼唤报道的真实性。我们都注意到，被某些媒体 “喂饱了” 的有些法国人对于中国有着很深的偏见。

　　在抵制奥运，抵制中国，所谓自由西藏的叫喊声中，中国人民对西方世界的审视和不信任正在增长。中国政府的努力还远没有达到尽善尽美的地步，说它是世界上最完善的和说它是世界上最差的同样可笑。但我们这一代，我们这些20岁到30岁的年轻人，从我们年幼时起，我们就一直生活在中国生活水平不断提高及自由度不断开放的环境中。

　　我们很惊讶，在这一切都向好的方面发展的时刻，在这个我们生活比以前更好的时候，国外才有越来越多的人想把我们从所谓的“世界上最大的独裁”中“拯救”出来！我想问，你们以前在哪儿？我们这些在西方求学的中国人，我们对未来充满了自信。的确，中国还有很多事情要做，而我们，我们中国人，更是对这些进步的实现有着前所未有的信心。

　　中国有另一种文化，另一种历史，另一个体积。社会学不是一种像数学精确的科学。在这方面，要成为一种 “普遍的典范” 有太多的变数。

　　来中国吧！来看看一个真实的，完整的中国，一个很多西方媒体不会展现给你们的中国，来西藏吧！用你们的眼睛来见证那个所谓的“文化灭绝”，是否这种灭绝真的存在，是否藏语正在“消失”，那些喇嘛们是不是可以自由的信仰他们的宗教，西藏人是不是比在达赖的神权统治下过得更好！和那些上了年纪的西藏人聊聊，谈谈他们永远无法忘记的“佛教天堂”。我们需要直接的交流，更多的知识交换，我们会继续对此作出贡献！

　　我们中国留学生支持奥运，支持奥运在中国举行，这个占人类五分之一人口的国家有资格承办奥运会。

　　奥运是属于谁的？奥运是属于您的，属于我的，属于我们的，属于我们大家，属于全世界的人民。这不是一场政治游戏。亲爱的政客们，反对中国的那些政治势力的走卒们，请停止你们对于奥运的污染。

　　中国作为东道主国家，想为全世界人民送上一份最好的礼物。成千上万的中国人呕心沥血多年，就是为了这一天。他们正敞开怀抱欢迎世界各国的人们。

　　当奥运圣火在世界各地传递的时候，所传达的是同一条信息，那就是欢迎你们的到来，中国人民期待和你们一起庆祝这个充满人性关爱的盛会。

　　当有些媒体提到，这次圣火传递失败是给中国的一记耳光。当代表着爱与和平的圣火，受到一些专门抗议者的侮辱行径时，我认为这确实是一记耳光，但不是给中国的，而是给中国人民的，给法国人民的，给全世界所有热爱奥运的人民的。

　　很多法国人似乎对中国有一种恐惧，这种恐惧来自于对中国的无知。这也是为什么我们希望你们可以直接和我们沟通，通过我们，热爱并希望巩固中法友谊的桥梁，来进一步了解中国。

　　中国和她的文化注定了我们爱好和平的本质。自秦朝统一六国后，中国从此结束了原来分裂的状态，成为一个完整独立的国家。我们便属于一个大家庭。

　　我认为这是一个具有5000年历史的文化的高度。这会令人担忧？但是文化是鲜活的具有生命力的。当你们在中国饭店使用筷子的时候，中国文化正向你们充分地展开它的怀抱。

　　妖魔化中国只会让中国人愈发远离西方世界，只会加剧人民间的距离。

　　请让我们好好沟通！

　　我们想给你们其他一个信息。我们中国留学生，非常诚恳地希望中法人民之间不要有敌对情绪，因为不管怎样这都是不理性的，也是没用的。了解两种不同文化的我们，希望成为这两国人民的一座桥梁，一个信息沟通点。我们向你们诉说的是中国人民的真实想法和感受，我们同时也会传达法国人民对中国善意的关注。请相信我，这座桥，将会前所未有的坚固，特别是在这种极度令人遗憾的现状下。

　　我亲爱的法国朋友们，我们热烈欢迎你们所有人的到来，甚至那些想“在北京制造混乱”（一个欧洲议会议员的言论）的人。我们将会帮助他们找到一个好的保险公司，为他们提供一种包括所有民事责任的保险。

　　让我们北京见吧，亲爱的朋友们！

　　谢谢，非常感谢！

New Chinese Pop Song: Don't be too CNN

Congrats to CNN, A new Chinese song for you:

Chinese to boycott products of CNN's advertisers

Chinese to boycott products of CNN's advertisers

Waking up in the morning, CNN's advertisers might feel inscrutable that their products have already been on Chinese people's boycott lists.

Stunned and shocked by a racist and hatred remark on the Chinese people by CNN's commentator Jack Cafferty in "the Situation Room" aired on April 9th, the Chinese are fighting back by boycotting products of CNN's advertisers—those who are airing advertisements during Cafferty's show time.

Cafferty charged the Chinese people with a highly despicable assault by saying, "They (Chinese) are basically the same bunch goons and thugs they have been in the past fifty years." (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/09/sitroom.03.html)

The new campaign against CNN is just an escalated version of the "tit for tat" campaign in response to Cafferty's previous insult and CNN's recent coverage on the Olympic relay in Paris, London and San Francisco, which is overwhelmingly condemned by the Chinese community as ungrounded and defamatory.

The appeal, circulated on the internet and bulletin boards, indicates that a strong patriotic reaction among the Chinese people has been ignited. This time around, CNN is the target.

The more advertising bucks are poured here on CNN, the worse marketing will be expected there in China: The counter productive results the advertisers are afraid of. In recent years, most of the Fortune 500 companies have made targeted advertisement campaigns in China, a country with more than 1.3 billion potential customers.

The boycott statement urged CNN’s advertisers to understand Chinese people’s feelings against Cafferty’s comments while it did mention that the campaign doesn’t target any companies who are sponsoring other CNN programs, “at this point we Chinese consider it (Cafferty’s comments) unacceptable for advertisers to air their ads on Cafferty's show time”.

Till now, no apology has been heard from Mr. Jack Cafferty. CNN has neither made any clear
statements nor taken any actions since. Many have wondered how the media will handle the new controversy exactly a year after Don Imus was fired due to his racist comments on the Rutgers female basketball team.

Earlier this week, Coca Cola withdrew one of its advertisements in Germany that stirred the ire of many Chinese people who criticized the intention of pro-Tibet-Independence and urged the public to boycott the brand.

The poster - spotted in a German railway station - shows Buddhist monks on a rollercoaster with the slogan: "Make it real".

A spokesperson from Coca Cola stated on April 9th, " This was certainly not our intention ... The old image was being used in the window of a shop in Bremen and has since been taken down ..."

Source of the post: http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/SanFrancisco/31329637.html.

How CNN is Reporting: Anything is Possible

This is how CNN is reporting events in this world. One suggestion to other media: Don't be too CNN. CNN is an adjective in Chinese now.

Xizang (Tibet) Was not A Part of China Before 1950s? Shut up!

Western media oftern say that Xizang was not a part of China before Chinese Communists liberated the brutal serf society ( How brutal it was? come here. )and kicked out the serf owner Dalai Lama.

Here are some maps that were printed by other countries before Chinese Communists took the power in China. China was weak then and could not force US, Germany, and India to print out those maps, right?

Keep this in mind: Xizang was China's Xizang, is China's Xizang and will be China's Xizang forever!


This map was printed in India. It shows the Sino-India border between 1700-1792 as stated on the map. Xizang was a part of Chinese Empire. This map is from The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1923. You can find it here.



This is a map printed by Germany in 1891. It reflects China's territory before 1891. Germans, open your eyes, and then tell me: wasn't Xizang not in China back then? The same map can be found here. It was published by Gotha:Julius Perthes in 1891.



This is a map published before 1900. That's definitely not a map printed by China. Was Xizang in China? It was from Americanized Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.1, Chicago 1892. You can find it here.



A map published in US in 1900. Xizang isn't a part of China?
Thanks the reader who provided this map in his comment.



This is a world map printed by US in 1942. That's before Chinese Communists took power in China. Didn't Xizang belong to China?

Who Lie about Xizang (Tibet) Violence and How!

Xizang terrorists raided Lasha (Lhasa), they killed more than 10 innocent people and destroyed others' properties. But western media called such a terror a "peaceful" protest. Ridiculous, isn't it?

Many western madia simply say: People died in the protest. This implicitly tells their audience or readers that Chinese government killed protests. Do they dare mention who died? who attacked whom? and who killed whom? Amazing, isn't it?

Other than that, they distorted the facts by using pictures from violence in other countries and commented as what happened in China.

The terror event caused a lot life and property lose for China. But China gained alot.

First of all, Chinese are united now. That's the biggest gain we had in this individualism era. China are still China, we are united before any crisis and enemies. You can see Chinese comments anywhere. Most of them are supporting government. Some are even organizing protesting in Canada and maybe some European countries. This is a very impressive progress.

Secondly, western media's real face is exposed to Chinese and other readers. This is very important for China. Most of us now know western media are simply liar about China. There is no such a media freedom at all. They torture the truth and mislead readers. On the contrary, Chinese media are more reliable knowledge resources. Naive Chinese will not dance with the western propaganda machines any more. Recalling 1989 event when I was a college participant in so-called student movement, Chinese students trusted only western lies. But now, things changed. Chinese students have a clear picture of western propaganda machinese and will think independently. China will be more united and advance without disturbing from outside.

I do have complains to our government. It shows too much mercies to the terrorists. Criminals must be punished on the scene no matter who they are, which religion they believe. People's lives are equal, people's properties are precious. Murders must be killed. That's the eternal law that our Chinese have abided for 5000 years.

Now, I can show who lie about Xizang (Tibet) violence and how they did. Enjoy the eye-opening pictures for you. You are welcome to copy this images and paste to anywhere.

You can click the image to get big ones.


Germany N-TV channel: The right side are real Chinese policemen. The left side actually happened in Nepal.



USA Washington Post: It used the Nepal police to show what happened in China.



Germany Bild-Zeitung: It used picture from Nepal again. But it says it happened in China.



Another lie from Germany Bild-Zeitung: It used picture from Nepal again. But it says it happened in China.




Ok, this is about notorious USA CNN, a famous liar with most advanced techonology in this world. Apparently it is more cunning than others. The left side picture was used by CNN. It is a real picture from Lasha, BUT, it was deliberately cut off from a larger one (Shown on the right side). The part CNN used dropped a hint to its readers that a "peaceful protest" was crushed by Chinese police. Actually, the original picture shows that rioters were attacking police. Interesting, isn't it? Those stupid Germany media and Washington Post should learn some from CNN. CNN is the No. 1experienced liar the leading propagator on this planet. CNN stands for "Cheating News Network".



This is the lie from Germany RTL TV channel. It used the picture from Nepal again. But it says that's from China.



Here is the video from Germany Spiegel. The video actually was taken from Nepal again. That's brave nepal police were taking appropriate and necessary action aginst those terrorists. But Spiegel says that's China.



This is the lie from BBC. Where is the heavey military presence? Ambulance is the heavey military or the med? A classical shitting from BBC that is owned by UK government.


This is Berliner Morgenpost, Germany again. That's a Chinese who was rescued by police. But the German liar say that's a protester who was arrested by police. Big ass!



From Gwermany N-TV channel. Use the video from Nepal, but the TV lied to its audiences, said it happened in China.



From Germany N24 TV channel. Same as above.



Oh, yeah, That's Fox news in US. Apparantly that happened in India. Brave Indian police was crushing terrorists. Fox is really a cunning animal.






These are screenshots of Youtube. A self-claimed free-sharing and free media. But many Chinese are complaining the deleting of their uploaded videos that tells the truth in Xizang. Youtube also manipulates counters of the videos posted by Chinese so that these videos would not be listed among the most viewed ones. Here is the screenshot. You can find the number of comments is even greater than than the number of the views. After a while, the number of comments increased by almost 1000, while the number did not change. Funny, right?

There are some other reports from Germany. But I don't have picture so far. Hope some one can provide. Thanks in advance.
1. Germany SAT1 TV channel: The picture showed that Chinese police escorted three Japanese visitors to get out of rioters. The picture came from China's CCTV. But SAT1 explained it as arrested rioters.
2. Germany ARD TV channel. It saied more than 100 protesters were killed, and then mentioned that Chinese government's number was 13 people. They simply don't say those 13 were killed by rioters.

So many lies from Germany. That maybe not strange for this world if you know the history of WWII. Mr. Adolf Hitler and Mr. Paul Joseph Goebbels were leaders elected by Germans. But that's the past glory of Germany liars. Now, it seems German should learn from US in propagating. The student scores much higher than its teacher now. German obviously leads in lie by numbers, but CNN alone beats them all in quality and innovation. Hurry up, Germany!

Dalai Lama: A friend of Nazi and Shoko Asahara

This is interesting for most of readers. It reveals Dalai's real face.

http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index2

More from Lhasa

Harder to get photos today as there is a very heavy police/army presence just outside our hotel.

Before I continue with some updates from today and videos from yesterday, I want to make one thing clear because all of the major news outlets are ignoring a very important fact. Yes, the Chinese government bears a huge amount of blame for this situation. But the protests yesterday were NOT peaceful. The original protests from the past few days may have been, but all of the eyewitnesses in this room agree the protesters yesterday went from attacking Chinese police to attacking innocent people very, very quickly. They appeared to target Muslim and Han Chinese individuals and businesses first but many Tibetans were also caught in the crossfire.

This video is an excellent example:
http://rapidshare.de/files/38832674/MVI_0483.AVI.html

Rapidshare is a bit tricky to use. What you have to do after clicking the link is scroll to the very bottom and press the Free button on the bottom right. Then you have to wait a certain amount of time (there will be a countdown mid-page) and then a password will appear - enter the password in the box and then you can download the video.

This motorcyclist, who I assume the protesters identified as Han Chinese, was simply riding up Beijing Street when the video took place. He was not army, not police, not doing anything other than riding his motorcycle.

The above message was copied from http://kadfly.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-from-lhasa.html since I could not create a link.

Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China

Time For The West to Practise What it Preaches

By Abdoulaye Wade

When it comes to China and Africa, the European Union and the US want to have their cake and eat it. In an echo of its past colonial rivalries, European leaders and donor organisations have expressed concerns that African nations are throwing their doors open too wide to Chinese investors and to exploitation by their Asian partners.

But if opening up more free markets is a goal that the west prizes – and extols as a path to progress – why is Europe fretting about China’s growing economic role in Africa? The expansion of free markets has indeed been a boon to Africa. But as I tell my friends in the west, China is doing a much better job than western capitalists of responding to market demands in Africa.

The battle for influence in the world between the west and China is not Africa’s problem. Our continent is in a hurry to build infrastructure, ensure affordable energy and educate our people. In many African nations, African leaders are striving to reinforce robust economic growth in a sustainable manner and reduce “brain-drain” incentives that have led to an exodus of well-educated Africans to Europe.

China’s approach to our needs is simply better adapted than the slow and sometimes patronising post-colonial approach of European investors, donor organisations and non-governmental organisations. In fact, the Chinese model for stimulating rapid economic development has much to teach Africa.

With direct aid, credit lines and reasonable contracts, China has helped African nations build infrastructure projects in record time – bridges, roads, schools, hospitals, dams, legislative buildings, stadiums and airports. In many African nations, including Senegal, improvements in infrastructure have played important roles in stimulating economic growth.

These are improvements, moreover, that stay in Africa and raise the standards of living for millions of Africans, not just an elite few. In Senegal, a Chinese company cannot be awarded an infrastructure-related contract unless it has partnered with a Senegalese company. In practice, Chinese companies are not only investing in Senegal but transferring technology, training, and know-how to Senegal at the same time.

It is a telling sign of the post-colonial mindset that some donor organisations in the west dismiss the trade agreements between Chinese banks and African states that produce these vital improvements – as though Africa was naïve enough to just offload its precious natural resources at bargain prices to obtain a commitment for another stadium or state house.

In the past, the political power-play between Taiwan and China often spurred Asian investment on the African continent. Today, however, economic relations are based more on mutual need – and the economic reality that the EU and the US cannot compete with China. A number of big projects in Senegal had initially been funded by the Taiwanese, but in 2005, Senegal abandoned the politicisation of development and opted for decisions based on a free market.

I have found that a contract that would take five years to discuss, negotiate and sign with the World Bank takes three months when we have dealt with Chinese authorities. I am a firm believer in good governance and the rule of law. But when bureaucracy and senseless red tape impede our ability to act – and when poverty persists while international functionaries drag their feet – African leaders have an obligation to opt for swifter solutions. I achieved more in my one hour meeting with President Hu Jintao in an executive suite at my hotel in Berlin during the recent G8 meeting in Heiligendamm than I did during the entire, orchestrated meeting of world leaders at the summit – where African leaders were told little more than that G8 nations would respect existing commitments.

At the same time that China has been especially nimble, the prices and quality of goods coming from Asia give African governments no choice other than to buy Chinese, Indian and Malaysian goods. For the price of one European vehicle, a Senegalese can purchase two Chinese cars. The proof is in the parking lot at the presidential palace in Dakar. Low-cost Chinese Chery and Great Wall models are giving Senegal’s middle and working classes access to a new car, a sign of our emerging consumer class. We are even using these affordable Chinese cars in a pilot project to reinsert unemployed women into the workforce by creating a fleet of taxis called Sister Taxis. When products are affordable, innovative programmes become realistic.

China, which has fought its own battles to modernise, has a much greater sense of the personal urgency of development in Africa than many western nations. Last year, the Chinese Eximbank pledged $20bn in development funds for African infrastructure and trade financing over the next three years, funds that outstripped all western donor pledges combined. News of the Exim commitment caused a fuss in some quarters of Europe. But western complaints about China’s slow pace in adopting democratic reform cannot obscure the fact that the Chinese are more competitive, less bureaucratic and more adept at business in Africa than their critics.

Today I find myself at the heart of an economic struggle with the EU. If Europe does not want to provide funding for African infrastructure – it pledged $15bn under the Cotonou Agreement eight years ago – the Chinese are ready to take up the task, more rapidly and at less cost. Not just Africa but the west itself has much to learn from China. It is time for the west to practice what it preaches about the value of market incentives.

Abdoulaye Wade is President of Senegal


Source.

Economic and Social Development of China in 2007

By National Bureau of Statistics of China

February 28, 2008

Source: http://www.stats.gov.cn

I. General Outlook

In 2007, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the year was 24,661.9 billion yuan, up by 11.4 percent over the previous year. Analyzed by different industries, the value added of the primary industry was 2,891.0 billion yuan, up by 3.7 percent, that of the secondary industry was 12,138.1 billion yuan, up by 13.4 percent and the tertiary industry was 9,632.8 billion yuan, up by 11.4 percent. The value added of the primary industry accounted for 11.7 percent of the GDP, maintaining the same level of the pervious year, that of the secondary industry accounted for 49.2 percent, up by 0.3 percentage point, and that of the tertiary industry accounted for 39.1 percent, down by 0.3 percentage point. Quarterly data showed that the GDP growth in the first quarter of the year was 11.1 percent; second quarter 11.9 percent, third quarter 11.5 percent and 11.2 percent growth for the fourth quarter.

Figure 1: Gross Domestic Product and its Growth, 2003-2007


The general level of consumer prices in China was up by 4.8 percent over the previous year. Of this total, the prices for food went up by 12.3 percent. The retail prices for commodities were up by 3.8 percent. The prices for investment in fixed assets were up by 3.9 percent. The producer prices for manufactured goods increased by 3.1 percent, of which, the prices for means of production increased by 3.2 percent, and for means of subsistence grew by 2.8 percent. The purchasing prices for raw materials, fuels and power went up by 4.4 percent. The producer prices for farm products were up by 18.5 percent. The sales prices for housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities were up by 7.6 percent, of which, that for new residential buildings went up by 8.2 percent, for second hand housing grew by 7.4 percent, and the prices for rental and leasing were up by 2.6 percent.

Figure 2: Changes in Consumer Prices, 2003-2007




At the end of 2007, the total of employed people in China numbered 769.90 million, 5.90 million more than that of 2006. Of this total, 293.50 million were employed in urban areas, a net increase of 10.40 million, a newly increase of 12.04 million. The urban unemployment rate through unemployment registration was 4.0 percent at the end of 2007, a drop of 0.1 percentage point over that of 2006.

At the end of 2007, China’s foreign exchange reserves reached 1,528.2 billion US dollars, an increase of 461.9 billion US dollars as compared with that at the end of the pervious year. At the end of the year, the exchange rate was 7.3046 RMB to 1 USD, an appreciation by 6.9 percent over that at the end of 2006.

Figure 3: Year-end Foreign Exchange Reserves, 2003-2007


The taxes collected in the whole year reached 4,944.9 billion yuan (excluding tariffs, farm land taxes and deed taxes), up by 31.4 percent or an increase of 1,181.3 billion yuan over 2006.

Figure 4: Tax Revenue and its Growth, 2003-2007



II. Agriculture

In 2007, the sown area of grain was 105.53 million hectares, an increase of 700 thousand hectares as compared with that in the previous year; the sown area of cotton was 5.59 million hectares, an increase of 70 thousand hectares; the sown area of oil-bearing crops was 10.94 million hectares, a decline of 600 thousand hectares; the sown area of sugar crops was 1.67 million hectares, an increase of 100 thousand hectares.

The total output of grain in 2007 was 501.50 million tons, an increase of 3.50 million tons or up by 0.7 percent over the previous year. Of this total, the output of summer crops was 115.34 million tons, up by 1.3 percent, and that of the early rice was 31.96 million tons, up by 0.3 percent. The output of autumn grain was 354.20 million tons, an increase of 0.6 percent.

Figure 5: Output of Grain and its Growth, 2003-2007


In 2007, the output of cotton was 7.60 million tons, a growth of 1.3 percent over the previous year, that of oil-bearing crops was 24.61 million tons, down by 4.2 percent and that of sugar crops was 111.10 million tons, an increase of 11.4 percent, that of tobacco was 2.39 million tons, down by 3.9 percent, and that of tea was 1.14 million tons, up by 10.9 percent.

The total output of meat for the year reached 68.00 million tons, down by 3.5 percent. Of this total, the output of pork was down by 9.2 percent, and that of beef and mutton went up by 6.1 percent and 5.8 percent respectively. The total output of aquatic products was 47.37 million tons, up by 3.3 percent. The total production of timber for the year 2007 reached 69.74 million cubic meters, an increase of 5.5 percent.

Over 1.07 million hectares of farmland was increased with effective irrigation systems and another additional 1.36 million hectares of farmland was guaranteed by water-saving irrigation systems.

III. Industry and Construction

In 2007, the total value added of the industrial sector was 10,736.7 billion yuan, up by 13.5 percent over the previous year. The value added of industrial enterprises above the designated size was up by 18.5 percent. of this total, that of the state-owned and state-holding enterprises grew by 13.8 percent, that of the collective enterprises went up by 11.5 percent, that of the share-holding enterprises increased by 20.6 percent, that of the enterprises by foreign investors and investors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan soared by 17.5 percent and 26.7 percent growth for private enterprises. Analyzed by light and heavy industries, the growth of the light industry was 16.3 percent and that of the heavy industry was 19.6 percent.

Figure 6: Industrial Value Added and its Growth, 2003-2007


In 2007, of the industrial enterprises above designated size, the growth of value added for the mining and washing of coal industry was18.1 percent over the previous year, for the extraction of petroleum and natural gas was 3.9 percent, for textile industry 16.2 percent, for processing of food from agricultural product 16.9 percent, for manufacture of general machinery 24.2 percent, for manufacture of transport equipment 26.2 percent, for manufacture of communication equipment, computers and other electronic equipment 18.0 percent and for manufacture of electrical machinery and equipment 21.5 percent. the growth of the value added for the major six high energy consuming industries were 18.9 percent, of which, that of the manufacture of non-metallic mineral products was 24.7 percent, smelting and pressing of ferrous metals 21.4 percent, manufacture of raw chemical materials and chemical products 21.0 percent, smelting and pressing of non-ferrous metals 17.8 percent, production and supply of electric power and heat power 13.8 percent and 13.4 percent for processing of petroleum, coking, processing of nuclear fuel. The value added growth for the high-tech industry was 17.8 percent over the previous year.



The profits made by the industrial enterprises above the designated size in the first 11 months of 2007 were 2,295.1 billion yuan, an increase of 36.7 percent over the same period of last year.




In 2007, the value added of construction enterprises in China was 1,401.4 billion yuan, up by 12.6 percent over the previous year. The profits made by construction enterprises qualified for general contracts and specialized contracts reached 147.0 billion yuan, up by 23.2 percent, with their paid taxes of 166.1 billion yuan, up by 18.5 percent.


IV. Investment in Fixed Assets

The completed investment in fixed assets of the country in 2007 was 13,723.9 billion yuan, up by 24.8 percent over the previous year. of the total investment, that in urban areas was 11,741.4 billon yuan, up by 25.8 percent; and that in rural areas reached 1,982.5 billion yuan, up by 19.2 percent. An analysis by regions showed that the investment in east areas was 7,231.4 billion yuan, up by 19.9 percent over the previous year, in central areas was 3,428.3 billion yuan, a growth of 33.3 percent, and in western areas 2,819.4 billion yuan, a growth of 28.2 percent.

Figure 7: Investment in Fixed Assets and its Growth, 2003-2007


In the urban areas, the investment in the primary industry was 146.6 billion yuan, up by 31.1 percent; that in the secondary industry was 5,102.0 billion yuan, up by 29.0 percent; and that in the tertiary industry was 6,492.8 billion yuan, up by 23.2 percent.

Table 4: Fixed Assets Investment in Urban Areas and its Growth by Sector in 2007


In 2007, the investment in real estate development was 2,528.0 billion yuan, up by 30.2 percent. Of this total, the investment in commercial residential buildings reached 1,801.0 billion yuan, an increase of 32.1 percent. The completed floor space of commercial buildings reached 582.36 million square meters, up by 4.3 percent. The total sales of commercial buildings reached 761.93million square meters, up by 23.2 percent, of which, that of the commercial residential building were 691.04 million square meters, up by 24.7 percent.



V. Domestic Trade

In 2007, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 8,921.0 billion yuan, up by 16.8 percent over the previous year. An analysis on different areas showed that the retail sales of consumer goods in cities reached 6,041.1 billion yuan, up by 17.2 percent and the retail sales of consumer goods at and below county level was 2,879.9 billion yuan, up by 15.8 percent. Analyzed by different sectors, the sales of the wholesales and retail trade reached 7,504.0 billion yuan, up 16.7 percent; the sales of the lodging and catering industry was 1,235.2 billion yuan, up 19.4 percent, and the sales of the other industries was 181.8 billion yuan, up 4.5 percent.

Of the total retail sales by wholesale and retail enterprises above designated size, the sales of grain and oil was up by 38.3 percent, meat and eggs up by 40.9 percent, clothing up by 28.7 percent, motor vehicles up by 36.9 percent, petroleum and related products up by 20.5 percent, daily necessities up by 26.5 percent, cultural and office goods up by 22.6 percent, telecommunication equipment up by 8.8 percent, electric and electronic appliances for household use and audio-video equipment up by 23.4 percent, building and decoration materials up by 43.6 percent, furniture up 43.2 percent, cosmetics up by 26.3 percent, gold, silver and jewelry up by 41.7 percent and traditional Chinese drugs and western drugs up by 25.1 percent.

Figure 8: Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods and its Growth, 2003-2007


VI. Foreign Economic Relations

The total value of imports and exports in 2007 reached 2,173.8 billion US dollars, up 23.5 percent over the previous year. Of this total, the value of exports was 1,218.0 billion US dollars, up 25.7 percent, and the value of imports was 955.8 billion US dollars, up 20.8 percent. China had a trade surplus of 262.2 billion US dollars, an increase of 84.7 billion US dollars over the previous year.





Figure 9: Imports and Exports and the Growth Rates, 2003-2007



The year 2007 witnessed the establishment of 37,871 enterprises with foreign direct investment in non-financial sectors, down by 8.7 percent; and the foreign capital actually utilized was 74.8 billion US dollars, up by 13.6 percent. Of the total foreign direct investment actually utilized, the share of investment in manufacturing was 54.7 percent over the pervious year, the real estate 22.9 percent, leasing and business service 5.4 percent, wholesales and retail trade 3.6 percent and transportation, storage and post service 2.7 percent.



In 2007, the overseas direct investment (non-financial sectors) by Chinese investors was 18.7 billion US dollars, up by 6.2 percent over the previous year.

In 2007, the accomplished business revenue through contracted overseas engineering projects was 40.6 billion US dollars, up by 35.3 percent, and the business revenue through overseas labor contracts was 6.8 billion US dollars, up by 26.0 percent over the previous year.

VII. Transportation, Post, Telecommunications and Tourism

The value added of the transportation, storage, post and telecommunication sectors reached 1,364.9 billion yuan in 2007, up 9.7 percent over the previous year.



The volume of freight handled by ports above the designated size throughout the year totaled 5.21 billion tons, up 13.4 percent over the previous year, of which freight for foreign trade was 1.78 billion tons, up 12.6 percent. Container shipping handled 111.79 million standard containers, up by 21.5 percent.

The total number of motor vehicles for civilian use reached 56.97 million (including 14.68 million tri-wheel motor vehicles and low-speed trucks) by the end of 2007, up 14.3 percent, of which private-owned vehicles numbered 35.34 million, up 20.8 percent. The total number of cars for civilian use stood at 19.58 million, up by 26.7 percent, of which private-owned cars numbered 15.22 million, up by 32.5 percent.

The turnover of post and telecommunication services totaled 1,936.1 billion yuan, up 26.4 percent over the previous year. Of this total, post services accounted for 81.5 billion yuan, up 11.8 percent, and telecommunication services 1,854.5 billion yuan, up 27.1 percent. By the end of 2007, with 8.36 million newly installed lines of office switchboards, the total capacity reached 510 million lines. The year also saw 365.45 million fixed telephone subscribers. This included 248.59 million urban subscribers and 116.86 million rural subscribers. Mobile phone users numbered 547.29 million by the end of 2007, with 86.23 million new subscribers in the year. In total, the number of fixed and mobile phone users reached 912.73 million, an increase of 83.89 million as compared with at the end of 2006. Phone coverage is 69 sets per 100 persons. The number of Internet users was 210 million and wide-band users reached 163 million.

Figure 10: Number of Phone Subscribers, 2003 - 2007


In 2007, the number of inbound visitors to China totaled 131.87 million, a year-on-year rise of 5.5 percent. Of this total, 26.11 million were foreigners, up 17.6 percent; and 105.76 million were Chinese compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, up 2.9 percent. Of all the inbound tourists, overnight visitors counted 54.72 million, up 9.6 percent. Foreign exchange earnings from international tourism topped 41.9 billion US dollars, up 23.5 percent. The number of China’s outbound visitors totaled 40.95 million, up 18.6 percent. Of this total, 34.92 million were on private visits, a year-on-year rise of 21.3 percent, or 85.3 percent of all outgoing visitors. The year 2007 saw 1.61 billion domestic tourists, up 15.5 percent. The revenue from domestic tourism totaled 777.1 billion yuan, up 24.7 percent.

VIII. Banking, Securities and Insurance
By the end of 2007, money supply of broad sense (M2) was 40.3 trillion yuan, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 16.7 percent. Money supply of narrow sense (M1) was 15.3 trillion yuan, up 21.1 percent. Cash in circulation (M0) was 3.0 trillion yuan, up 12.2 percent. Savings deposit in Renminbi and foreign currencies in all items of financial institutions totaled 40.1 trillion yuan at the end of 2007, up 15.2 percent. Loans in Renminbi and foreign currencies in all items of financial institutions reached 27.8 trillion yuan, up 16.4 percent.



Figure 11: Urban and Rural Households’ Savings Deposit in RMB and its Growth, 2003 - 2007



Loans in Renminbi from rural financial cooperation institutions (i.e. rural credit cooperatives, rural cooperation banks, and rural commercial banks) totaled 3.1 trillion yuan by the end of 2007, an increase of 508.5 billion yuan as compared with the beginning of 2007. The loans in Renminbi for consumption use from all financial institutions totaled 3.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 869.9 billion yuan. Of all consumption loans, those for individual housing totaled 2.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 714.7 billion yuan.

Funds raised in 2007 by enterprises through issuing stocks and share rights on stock market amounted to 843.2 billion yuan, an increase of 283.8 billion yuan over the previous year. Of this total, 283 companies issued A-shares (including newly issued and convertible loan stocks) with 7 companies issued A-share rights, receiving 772.8 billion yuan worth of capital altogether, an increase of 526.4 billion yuan over 2006. The issue of 14 H-shares raised another 70.4 billion yuan worth of capital, a decrease of 242.7 billion yuan. The number of listed companies (with A- or B-shares) on China’s stock market rose from 1,434 at the end of 2006 to 1,550 at the end of 2007, representing 32,714.1 billion yuan worth of market value, a growth of 265.9 percent over the previous year.

The total corporate bonds issued throughout the year reached 1,708.4 billion yuan, an increase of 352.0 billion yuan over 2006. Of this total, the financial bonds were 1,191.3 billion yuan, a growth of 230.8 billion yuan; the enterprise (corporate) bonds were 182.1 billion yuan, an increase of 80.6 billion yuan; and the short-term financing funds were 334.9 billion yuan, an increase of 40.6 billion yuan.

The premium received by the insurance companies totaled 703.6 billion yuan in 2007, up 25.0 percent over the previous year. Of this total, life insurance premium amounted to 446.4 billion yuan, health and casualty insurance premium 57.4 billion yuan, and property insurance premium 199.8 billion yuan. Insurance companies paid an indemnity worth of 226.5 billion yuan, of which, life insurance indemnity was 106.4 billion yuan, health and casualty insurance indemnity 18.0 billion yuan, and property insurance indemnity 102.1 billion yuan.

IX. Education, Science and Technology

In 2007, the post-graduate education enrollment was 1.2 million students with 420 thousand new students and 310 thousand graduates. The general tertiary education enrollment was 18.85 million students with 5.66 million new students and 4.48 million graduates. Vocational secondary schools of various types had 20 million enrolled students, including 8 million new entrants, and 5.3 million graduates. Senior secondary schools had 25.22 million enrolled students, including 8.4 million new entrants, and 7.88 million graduates. Students enrolled in junior secondary schools totaled 57.36 million, including 18.69 million new entrants, and 19.64 million graduates. The country had a primary education enrollment of 105.64 million students, including 17.36 million new entrants, and 18.7 million graduates. There were 410 thousand students enrolled in special education schools, with 60 thousand new entrants. Kindergartens accommodated 23.49 million children.

Figure 12: New Entrants into Education, 2003 - 2007


The amount of expenditures on research and development activities (R&D) was worth 366.4 billion yuan in 2007, up 22.0 percent over 2006, accounting for 1.49 percent of GDP. Of this total, 18 billion yuan was appropriated for fundamental research programs. A total number of 1,540 projects under the National Key Technology Research and Development Program and 2,541 projects under the Hi-tech Research and Development Program (the 863 Program) were implemented. The year 2007 saw the establishment of 9 new national engineering research centers and 6 national engineering laboratories. the number of state validated enterprise technical centers reached 499 by the end of the year. The technical centers at the provincial level numbered 4,023. Some 694 thousand patent applications were accepted from home and abroad, of which 587 thousand were domestic applications, accounting for 84.5 percent of the total. A total number of 245 thousand patent applications for new inventions were accepted, of which 153 thousand were from domestic applicants or 62.4 percent of the total. A total of 352 thousand patents were authorized in 2007, of which 302 thousand were domestic patents, accounting for 85.7 percent of the total. A total of 68 thousand patents for new inventions were authorized, of which 32 thousand were domestic ones, accounting for 47.0 percent. A total of 210 thousand technology transfer contracts were signed, representing 220 billion yuan in value, up 21.0 percent over the previous year. The year 2007 saw 10 times of successful launch of satellites and Chang’e-1 circumlunar exploration satellite was launched successfully.

By the end of 2007, there were altogether 24,700 laboratories for product inspection, including 356 national inspection centers. There were 184 organizations for product certification and management system certification, which accumulatively certified products in 70 thousand enterprises. A total of 3,720 authorized measurement institutions enforced compulsory inspection on 42.18 million measurement instruments in the year. A total of 1,411 national standards were developed or revised in the year, including 747 new standards. Through out the year, a total of 3,350 weather forewarning signals were released and alarm signals were 690 times. There were 1,314 seismological monitor stations and 31 seismological remote monitor network stations. The numbers of oceanic observation stations were 66 and oceanic monitor spots reached 9,200. Mapping departments published 1,946 maps and 417 mapping books.

X. Culture, Public Health and Sports

At the end of 2007, there were 2,856 art-performing groups, 2,921 culture centers, 2,791 public libraries, 1,634 museums, 263 radio broadcasting stations, 287 television stations, 1,993 radio broadcasting and television stations and 44 educational television stations throughout China. Subscribers to cable television programs numbered 151.18 million. Subscribers to digital cable television programs were 26.16 million. Radio broadcasting and television broadcasting coverage rates were 95.4 percent and 96.6 percent respectively. The country produced 402 feature movies and 58 science, educational, documentary, cartoon and special movies. A total of 43.9 billion copies of newspapers and 2.9 billion copies of magazines were issued, and 6.6 billion copies of books published. by the end of the year, there were 3,952 archives in China and 67.87 million documents were made accessible to the public.

By the end of 2007, there were 315 thousand health institutions in China, including 60 thousand general hospitals and health centers, 3,007 maternal and child health-care institutions, 1,400 specialized health institutions, 3,540 epidemic disease prevention centers (stations) and 2,590 health monitoring institutions. There were 4.68 million health workers in China, including 2.04 million practicing doctors and assistant practicing doctors and 1.47 million registered nurses. General hospitals and health centers in China possessed 3.279 million beds. There were 24 thousand community health service centers. the number of rural health care centers was 39 thousand, possessing 675 thousand beds and employing 863 thousand health care workers. In 2007, 3.581 million people were infected by A or B class infectious diseases, with 12,954 reported deaths. the incidence of infectious disease was 272.4 per 100 thousand, with the death rate standing at 0.99 per 100 thousand.

In 2007, Chinese athletes won 123 world championships on 22 sports events. Eight athletes and 2 teams broke 10 world records on 10 occasions. the amateur sports activities were carried out vigorously.

XI. Population, Living Conditions and Social Security

At the end of 2007, the total number of Chinese population reached 1,321.29 million, an increase of 6.81 million over that at the end of 2006. The year 2007 saw 15.94 million births, a crude birth rate of 12.10 per thousand, and 9.13 million deaths, or a crude death rate of 6.93 per thousand. The natural growth rate was 5.17 per thousand. the sex ratio at birth was 120.22.



In 2007, the annual per capita net income of rural households was 4,140 yuan, or a real increase of 9.5 percent over the previous year when the factors of price increase were deducted. The annual per capita disposable income of urban households was 13,786 yuan, or a real increase of 12.2 percent. The Engel coefficient (which refers to the proportion of expenditure on food to the total expenditure of households) was 43.1 percent for rural households and 36.3 percent for urban households. The population in absolute poverty in rural areas with annual per capita net income below 785 yuan numbered 14.79 million at the end of 2007, a decline of 6.69 million over the previous year. The low-income population in rural areas with annual per capita net income between 786 - 1067 yuan numbered 28.41 million, a decline of 7.09 million.

Figure 13: Per Capita Net Income of Rural Households and its Growth, 2003-2007


Figure 14: Per Capita Disposable Income of Urban Households and its Growth, 2003-2007


At the end of 2007, a total of 201.07 million people participated in basic pension program, a year-on-year increase of 13.41 million. Of this total, 151.56 million were staff and workers, and 49.51 million were retirees. A total of 220.51 million people participated in urban basic health insurance program, an increase of 63.19 million, of whom 179.83 million people participated in urban basic health insurance program for staff and workers, 40.68 million people participated in programs for residents. A total of 31.31 million people participated in urban health insurance programs were migrant workers coming from the rural areas, an increase of 7.64 million. Some 116.45 million people participated in unemployment insurance programs, an increase of 4.58 million. A total of 121.55 million people participated in work accident insurance, an increase of 18.87 million, of which 39.66 million were migrant workers coming from the rural areas, an increase of 14.29 million. A total of 77.55 million people participated in maternity insurance programs, an increase of 12.96 million. A total of 2,448 counties (cities, districts) conducted the new cooperative medical care system in rural areas, attracting 730 million farmers which represented a participation rate of 85.7 percent. The total expenditure of the new cooperative medical care system in rural areas reached 22 billion yuan, benefiting 260 million people. In 2007, the urban medical assistance helped 4.07 million people, up by 117.2 percent. The rural medical assistance helped 6.03 million people, up by 150.1 percent. A total of 23.06 million people were funded by the civil affairs department in the rural cooperative medical care system.

The number of people receiving unemployment insurance payment stood at 2.86 million. A total of 22.71 million urban residents received the government minimum living allowances, or 310 thousand more than the previous year. About 34.52 million rural residents received the government minimum living allowance, an increase of 18.59 million.

Social welfare institutions of various types provided 2.05 million beds by the end of 2007, accommodating 1.63 million inmates. There were 128 thousand community service facilities and 10,299 comprehensive community service centers were set up in urban areas. A total of 63.2 billion yuan worth of social welfare lottery tickets were sold, raising 21.7 billion yuan of social welfare funds. A total of 4.2 billion yuan were received from direct donations.

XII. Resources, Environment and Work Safety

A total of 188.3 thousand hectares of cultivated land was used for construction purpose in 2007. An area of 17.9 thousand hectares of cultivated land was destroyed by disasters, 25.4 thousand hectares of farmland was converted into land for ecological preservation. The structural adjustment to agriculture led to a reduction of 4.9 thousand hectares of cultivated land. Land reclamation and re-development programs added 195.8 thousand hectares of cultivated land. As a result, the year 2007 witnessed a net reduction of 40.7 thousand hectares of cultivated land.

The total stock of water resources in 2007 was 2,469.0 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year decline of 2.5 percent, or 1,873 cubic meters in per capita terms, down by 3.0 percent. The annual average precipitation was 608 millimeters, up by 1.9 percent. Large reservoirs in China stored 186.9 billion cubic meters of water at the end of 2007, 5.2 billion cubic meters more than that at the end of 2006. Total water consumption went down by 0.6 percent to reach 576.0 billion cubic meters, of which water consumption for living purposes rose by 1.6 percent, for industrial use up by 2.7 percent and for agricultural use down by 2.2 percent. Water consumption for every 10 thousand yuan worth of GDP produced was 253 cubic meters, a decline of 10.8 percent. Water consumption for every 10 thousand yuan worth of industrial value added was 139 cubic meters, down by 9.5 percent. Per capita water consumption was 437 cubic meters, down by 1.1 percent.

National land surveys and geological explorations discovered a total of 208 new mineral deposits in large or medium size, including 50 energy mineral deposits, 73 metallic mineral deposits, 82 non-metallic mineral deposits and 3 aqueous and gaseous deposits. Increased reserves were found for 77 minerals, including 1.21 billion tons of crude oil, 697.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 40.62 billion tons of coal.

A total of 5.20 million hectares of forest were planted, 3.71million hectares of forest were survived, of which 2.56 million were afforested by manpower. Some 2.68 million hectares were afforested through key afforestation projects, accounting for 72.2 percent of the total planted area of the year. About 2.27 billion trees were planted in 2007 by volunteers. By the end of 2007, there were 2,531 natural reserves including 303 national ones and covering a total area of 151.88 million hectares, or 15.0 percent of the total land area of China. A total of 39 thousand square kilometers of eroded land were put under comprehensive treatment programs, and 33 thousand square kilometers of land were closed for nurture and protection in areas suffering water and soil erosion.

Preliminary estimation indicated that the total energy consumption in 2007 amounted to 2.65 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, up 7.8 percent over 2006. The consumption of coal was 2.58 billion tons, up 7.9 percent; crude oil 340 million tons, up 6.3 percent; natural gas 67.3 billion cubic meters, up 19.9 percent; and electric power 3,263.2 billion kilowatt hours, up 14.1 percent. The consumption of major kinds of raw materials included 520 million tons of rolled steel, up 17.4 percent; 3.99 million tons of copper, up by 13.0 percent; 11.12 million tons of electrolytic aluminum, up by 27.6 percent; 10.48 million tons of ethylene, up by 11.4 percent; and 1.33 billion tons of cement, up 10.5 percent.

Figure 15: Total Energy Consumption and its Growth, 2003-2007


Monitoring of water quality on 408 sections of the 7 major water systems in China showed that 50.0 percent of the sections met the national quality standard of Grade III for surface water, 26.5 percent of the sections met the quality standard of Grade IV or V, and 23.5 percent were worse than Grade V. There was no significant change of the water quality in the 7 major water systems as compared with that in the previous year.

Monitoring of oceanic water quality at 296 offshore monitoring stations indicated that oceanic water met the national quality standard Grade I and II in 62.8 percent of the stations, down by 4.9 percentage points from the previous year; water quality at 11.8 percent of the stations met Grade III standard, up by 3.8 percentage points; and water of Grade IV or inferior quality was found at 25.4 percent of the stations, up by 1.1 percentage points. A total of 145 thousand square kilometers of oceanic waters did not meet the quality standard for clean oceanic water, a decrease of 4 thousand square kilometers. of this total, seriously polluted oceanic area occupied 29 thousand square kilometers. Seriously polluted oceanic area in Bohai Sea occupied 6 thousand square kilometers.

In the 557 cities covered by air quality monitoring program, 389 cities reached or topped air quality standard Grade II, accounting for 69.8 percent of all cities under the program; 152 cities attained Grade III, accounting for 27.3 percent; and air quality in 16 cities was inferior to Grade III, accounting for 2.9 percent. of the 342 cities subject to noise monitoring program, 6.1 percent enjoyed fairly good environment, 64.6 percent had good environment, 28.1 percent had light noise pollution, and 1.2 percent experienced medium noise pollution in downtown areas.

The average temperature in 2007 was 10.1℃, which was 0.2℃ higher than that in previous year. Typhoon hit China 8 times in 2007, 2 more compared with that in 2006.

At the end of 2007, the daily treatment capacity of city sewage reached 70.00 million cubic meters, up 10.0 percent over that in 2006. City sewage treatment rate was 59.0 percent, up 3.3 percentage points. The floor space with central heating systems amounted to 2.85 billion square meters, up 7.1 percent. Greenery coverage reached 36.0 percent of the urban area, up 1 percentage point.

In 2007, natural disasters caused 236.3 billion yuan worth of direct economic loss, down by 6.5 percent. Natural disasters hit 48.99 million hectares of crops, up 19.2 percent, of which 5.75 million hectares of crops was demolished, up 6.2 percent. 2007 witnessed 9,260 forest fires, up by 13.3 percent. There was no extra big forest fire. Floods and waterlog caused a direct economic loss of 82.6 billion yuan, up by 46.9 percent and left a death roll of 1,168, up by 54.9 percent. Drought caused a direct economic loss of 78.5 billion yuan, up by 10.9 percent. Oceanic disasters caused a direct economic loss of 8.84 billion yuan, down by 59.5 percent. The occurrence of red tides hit an accumulative area of 11,610 square kilometers, down by 41.5 percent. China registered 25 thousand geological disasters which left a death doll of 598 and made a total direct economic loss of 2.48 billion yuan. The country recorded 6 earthquakes with magnitude 5 and over, 3 of which caused disasters, causing a direct economic loss of 2.02 billion yuan.

The death toll due to work accidents amounted to 101,480 people, a year-on-year decrease of 10.1 percent. The death toll from work accidents every 100 million yuan worth of GDP was 0.413 people, a decline of 26.3 percent. Work accidents in industrial, mining and commercial enterprises caused 3.05 deaths out of every 100 thousand employees, down 8.4 percent. The death toll for producing one million tons of coal in coal mines was 1.485 persons, down 27.2 percent. The year 2007 witnessed 327 thousand traffic accidents, claiming 82 thousand lives, injuring 380 thousand people and causing a direct property loss of 1.2 billion yuan. The road traffic death toll per 10 thousand vehicles was 5.1 persons, a decrease of 1.1 persons.
Notes:

1. All figures in this Communiqué are preliminary statistics.
2. Statistics in this Communiqué do not include Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan Province.
3. Due to the rounding-off reasons, the subentries may not add up to the aggregate totals.
4. Gross domestic product (GDP) and value added as quoted in this Communiqué are calculated at current prices, whereas their growth rates are at comparable prices.
5. The base figures for calculating the output growth rate of major farm products are adjusted correspondently according to the results of the second national agricultural census. The output of fruits and vegetables are under checking, and will be published separately.
6. Six highly energy-consuming industries are: manufacture of raw chemical materials and chemical products, manufacture of non-metallic mineral products, smelting and pressing of ferrous metals, smelting and pressing of non-ferrous metals, oil processing, coking and nuclear fuel processing, and production and supply of electricity and heat.
7. Output and consumption of rolled steel include duplicated counting of rolled steel as intermediate inputs used for producing other types of rolled steel.
8. The national total of fixed assets investment is larger than the aggregate sum by adding up the subtotals of fixed assets investment in the eastern areas, central areas, and western areas due to the fact that some of the trans-regional investments are not covered by regional figures.
9. The investment in real estate includes the investment made in real estate development, construction of buildings for own use, property management, intermediary services and other real estate development.
10. The original premium income received by the insurance companies refers to the premium income from original insurance contracts confirmed by the insurance companies, same as the “premium received by the insurance companies” in previous Communiqués.
11. The number of people covered in urban basic health insurance programs for urban staff and workers include staff and workers and retirees insured. the urban basic health insurance programs for urban residents refer to urban non-employed residents who are not covered by the urban basic health insurance programs for staff and workers.
12. The consumption of water for producing 10 thousand yuan worth of GDP is calculated at 2005 constant prices. The turnover of post and telecommunication services is calculated at constant prices of 2000.
13. The consumption of energy for producing 10 thousand yuan worth of GDP, the total emission of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and the sulfur dioxide (SO2) of the whole country will be further certified by relevant departments and be published in near future.

Lenovo Thinkpad X300 vs Apple Mackbook Air

You can click it to view a the bigger picture of this table.

The only thing I need to mention here is that the CPUs used by both machines are all Core 2 Duo SL7100 LV. Thinkpad X300's runs on lower clock at 1.2GHZ. The 800MHZ in the table is actually the front bus speed.

Beijing opens massive airport terminal

Beijing's new international air terminal, which opened today in time for the Summer Olympics surge, attracts and embodies superlatives. It also embodies the new China, a country racing headlong into the future fueled by an economy on fire.

For many countries increasingly worried about how competitive and fast-moving China is, this $2.8-billion project provides one more reason to fret. China's authoritarian system can certainly move. At its peak, the construction site had 50,000 workers toiling around the clock.

"Most Western politicians wouldn't admit agreeing to that system, but they're very jealous," said Rory McGowan, Beijing-based director of global engineering firm Ove Arup & Partners, which worked on the project. The Chinese "can react to decisions four or five times faster than we can [in the West] because China runs the way it does." China has a long history of awing visitors with structures that evoke size and power, epitomized by the Forbidden City.

The terminal measures about 10.6 million square feet. By comparison, the Pentagon, often described as the largest office building in the world, is 6.5 million square feet. And the enormous terminal is astride a runway able to handle the new Airbus A380 superjumbo jets. It's got all manner of bells and whistles, including "barrier-free" facilities for the disabled, floor tracking to guide the blind, and multi-denominational prayer rooms in an officially atheist country. It also has baby-changing facilities galore and 26 smoking rooms with advanced filtering systems -- in short, a lot of stuff you probably won't see again during your stay in China.

The designers put a premium on air, light, greenery and distinct Chinese characteristics. The sloping roof is meant to evoke a dragon, with triangular skylights resembling scales. Feng shui principles were incorporated into the design, and the interior is decorated in colors that hold special meaning for Chinese.

"Feng shui has a scientific and a superstitious side," said Shao Weiping, principal architect with Beijing Architectural Design. "We used the scientific side."

Six airlines will start flying from Beijing's massive terminal today, and flag carrier Air China and others will move from the airport's two older terminals in March. Air China and United are the only airlines offering nonstop service from Beijing to LAX. United's flights will also move to the new terminal next month.

The new terminal will boost the airport's annual capacity by tens of millions of passengers to 82 million, a target planners originally expected to hit around 2015, but now believe could come years earlier. A second international airport is already under consideration.

Excerpted from LA Time.

Analysis: Demise of India's IC manufacturing dreams

When India government and media are still loudly shouting about semiconductor industry, such as India gets $7 bn for Fab City, Industrial analysis found everything is just illusion. Here is a report from EETimes.

One word: India's voice is always louder than its action.

India's chip manufacturing dreams appear to be doomed as SemIndia's $3 billion-fab project is likely to die a premature death as will another fab planned by India Electronics Manufacturing Corp. (IEMC). In addition, Korean investor June Min's plan to set up India's first fab in Hyderabad has been abandoned in favor of making photovoltaic products.

India had made major strides in the last year, announcing a chip manufacturing policy. The incentive policy was intended to help launch state-of-the-art fabs in the country over the next few years.

But the high expectations here for a domestic chip industry have faded as financial realities reemerge. Both SemIndia's fab, which would use technology from Advanced Micro Devices, and IEMC's fab with partner Infineon Technologies, appear to be dead in the water.

Venture capital firm Sandalwood Partners, Wall Street fund Empire Capital Partners and contract electronics manufacturer Flextronics, which together have pumped more than $30 million into the SemIndia venture, are uncertain about SemIndia's fab strategy, according to sources close to the project.

"There are many uncertainties in the Indian context," said one industry source. "In particular, since the semiconductor industry is a very dynamic and cyclic—with periodic downturns and a highly intensive capital industry—it becomes imperative that any company involved in this area has to be able to manage its investments, capacity allocation, new factories and phasing out of the old technologies in a shorter timeframe.

"This is crucial to the survival and growth of the semi industry. It is not clear that it is yet possible to manage this dynamics in India," the industry source added.

Shifting gears
Despite the uncertainty, SemIndia's Systems unit is emerging as the company's flagship, and its manufacturing capability has bolstered the company's financial performance. Similarly, IEMC outlined revised plans focusing on the photovoltaic market where CEO Rajendra Singh is an expert.

The $25-billion conglomerate Reliance or other deep- pocketed suitors may also be considering a buyout of ailing chip makers like AMD, say industry observers.

Its investors have a simple strategy for SemIndia: From the start, grow SemIndia Systems into a profitable venture. It is the first Indian manufacturer to ship over 1 million ADSL2+ broadband modems in its first year of production. Annual revenues surpassed $25 million in 2007, and its run rate for 2008 is an estimated $80 million.

The Indian manufacturer has overtaken established companies such as D-Link, Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies that have long supplied Indian companies.

SemIndia Systems has also recorded substantial growth in less than two years, and investors are forecasting as much as 50-fold growth within the next three to four years if it sticks with back-end manufacturing rather than chip making.

"It is precisely because of this that SemIndia is attracting the attention of many funding institutions, and is likely to announce a substantial additional funding from a handful of U.S. VCs and Wall Street funds," a source said.

New plans
India's electronics market is expected to reach $363 billion by 2015, and domestic demand for semiconductors alone is forecast to reach $36 billion, according to market researcher Frost & Sullivan.

"Sometimes when you are too close to the project you are not able to see where you are going," said one investor. "That was precisely the case with the SemIndia project. Now, we have realized that we were wrong, and to straighten things out we are requesting for the company to change the business model."

IEMC executives have also shelved its fab plans. "We are not planning to set up a fab in India for the time being. We have other plans," said an IEMC executive who asked not to be named.

A key reason is soaring fab costs. The $3-billion investment which SemIndia envisaged in October 2005 now stands at $7 billion. And the question now is, why spend $7 billion when a company could buy an existing chipmaker for the same amount?

According to industry analyst Y. Shashidar, "India has to take smaller steps and move in a right direction. If Indian companies can buyout fabs, they should check out the technology and see whether their business plans could integrate" a fab.

Industry analysts also blame the Indian government's delayed and murky chip policy for the failure to launch a fab here. Policy makers were offering a special incentive package scheme to encourage fab investments, including a 25-percent subsidy on capital expenditures for manufacturing outside special economic zones and 20 percent inside these zones. "However, the form in which the government will provide this subsidy is unclear," financial advisor Deloitte concluded in an internal note on semiconductor investments in India.

Industry experts also wonder what an India chipmaker could offer the global market that Chinese manufacturers can't. With Intel Corp. planning a 65nm fab in China, most observers here agree with an IEMC executive who said India's "big fab story is truly dead."

Another report also found that India's semiconductor revenues fall short of forecast.

The revenues for semiconductors in India during 2006 have fallen short of the forecast of India Semiconductor Association (ISA) ô Frost & Sullivan study by 41 per cent.

The ISA-Frost & Sullivan semiconductor market report had forecast the revenues in the Indian total market to touch $3.8 billion and the total available market (TAM) revenues to touch $1.62 billion. However, the report update in 2007 estimated the actual revenues at $2.69 billion (total market revenues) and $1.26 billion (TAM).

The report update, released at the ISA Vision Summit 2008 on Monday, attributes the shortfall in revenues to the sharp decline in various semiconductors Average Selling Price (ASPs) in different end-user product categories.

Textile sector fails to gain from quota removal

I bet many reader still remember India's tout about India would pass China in textile industry. But the fact hits back again. This following is the news from The Times of India. . More information can be found on that website.

The dismantling of the quota system failed to work wonders for textile and clothing (T&C) exports from India while neighbouring China marched ahead, despite restricitve quotas imposed by major importers like the US and EU.

Quota system was dismantled in 2005 and India was counted among key beneficiaries. However, the survey clearly shows that China beat India in major markets like the US and EU, leaving much to be desired.

"Though the growth in our T&C exports to the world accelerated sharply to 30% in 2005, it reverted back to the trend levels in 2006 with a disappointing 10.5%. China, in contrast, continued to raise its already high share of global T&C exports, with growth accelerating from 21% in 2005 to 25% in 2006, despite restrictive quotas by the US and EU," the survey said.

India's share in the global T&C exports grew by just 0.7% to 3.7% between 2004 and 2006 just when China managed to increase its share by a big 6.3% to 27.2%.

The worrying trend continued for India in 2007 as well, if one looks at the US market. In January-November 2007, US imports of T&C from the world grew by only 3.8%, affecting imports from India that grew by only 2% though China again managed a robust 20.5% growth.

What Makes a Miracle? Some myths about the rise of China and India

By Pranab Bardhan

After more than a century of relative stagnation, the economies of India and China have been growing at remarkably high rates over the past 25 years. In 1820 the two countries contributed nearly half of the world’s income; by 1950, with the industrialized West having pulled away, their share had fallen to less than one-tenth. Today it is just less than one-fifth, and projections suggest that by 2025 it will rise to one-third. (In 2008 the World Bank is expected to issue revised numbers about cost of living in China and India, which may somewhat reduce these estimated income shares, both current and future).

The consequences of this expansion are extraordinary. The Chinese economy in particular has made the most headway against poverty in world history, with hundreds of millions of people moved out of the most extreme poverty within just a generation. (The environmental consequences are comparably remarkable, though perhaps proportionately disastrous).

What explains this strikingly rapid growth? The answer that continues to dominate public discussion in the United States runs along the following lines: decades of socialist controls and regulations stifled enterprise in India and China and led them to a dead end. A mix of market reforms and global integration finally unleashed their entrepreneurial energies. As these giants shook off their “socialist slumber,” they entered the “flattened” playing field of global capitalism. The result has been high economic growth in both countries and correspondingly large declines in poverty.

While India’s performance has been substantial, China’s has been truly dramatic. The particularly dramatic Chinese performance (like the earlier economic “miracles” in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) suggests, in the dominant narrative, that authoritarianism may be better than democracy for development—at least in its early stages. Regional economic decentralization provided local autonomy and incentives, and, even without democracy, led to broad-based local development. But the narrative warns that global capitalism has brought rising inequality, more in China than in India. The idea is that this may portend serious trouble for Chinese political stability, as China does not have the capability of democratic India to let off the steam of inequality-induced discontent.

This story contains a few elements of truth and provides many comforts to our preconceptions. But through sheer repetition it has acquired an authority that does not withstand scrutiny.

Start with the claim that global integration and associated market reforms resulted in high growth, which in turn produced dramatic declines in extreme poverty. Applied to China, the timing simply does not fit. China has indeed made large strides in foreign trade and investment since the 1990s, but well before then, say between 1978 and 1993, the country had already achieved an average annual growth rate of about nine percent—even higher than the impressive seven percent growth rate in East Asia between 1960 and 1980.

China’s poverty-reduction storyline is similarly flawed. While expansion of exports of labor-intensive manufactures lifted many people out of poverty over the past decade, the principal reason for the dramatic decline over the past three decades may lie elsewhere. World Bank estimates suggest that two-thirds of the decline in extremely poor people (those living below the admittedly crude poverty line of one dollar a day per capita at 1993 international parity prices) between 1981 and 2004 had taken place by the mid-1980s. Much of the extreme poverty was concentrated in rural areas, and its large decline in the first half of the 1980s may have been principally the result of domestic factors that have little if anything to do with global integration: a spurt in agricultural growth following de-collectivization, in which output increased at 7.1% per year on average between 1979 and 1984, almost triple the 1970-78 rate; a land reform program, involving a highly egalitarian distribution of land-cultivation rights subject only to differences in regional average and family size, which provided a floor for rural income; and increased farm procurement prices.

As for India, market reforms may not be mainly responsible for its recent high growth. Reform has clearly made the Indian corporate sector more vibrant and competitive, but most of the Indian economy lies outside the corporate sector; for example, 93 percent of the labor force works outside the corporate sector, private or public.

Take the fast-growing service sector, where India’s IT-enabled services have acquired a global reputation while employing less than a quarter of one percent of the total Indian labor force. Service subsectors like finance, business services (including those IT-enabled services), and telecommunication, where reform may have made a significant difference, constitute only about a quarter of total service-sector output. Two-thirds of service output is in traditional or “unorganized” activities, in tiny enterprises often below the policy radar and unlikely to have been directly much affected by regulatory or foreign trade policy reforms. It is a matter of some dispute how much of the growth in traditional services (mostly non-traded) can be explained by a rise in service demand in the rest of the economy, and how much of it is a statistical artifact, since the way output is measured in these traditional services has been rather shaky all along.

As for poverty, the latest Indian household survey data suggest that the rate of decline, if anything, slowed somewhat in 1993-2005—the period of global integration—compared with the ’70s and ’80s. Moreover, some non-income indicators of poverty such as those relating to child health, already rather dismal, have hardly improved in recent years. (For example, the percentage of underweight children in India is much larger than in sub-Saharan Africa and has not changed much in the past decade or so). Growth in agriculture, where much of the poverty is concentrated, has declined somewhat over the past decade, largely because of the decline of public investment in rural infrastructure such as irrigation. Little of this has much to do with globalization. Indeed, some disaggregated studies across districts in India have found trade liberalization slowing down the decline in rural poverty. Such results may indicate the difficulty displaced farmers and workers have had adjusting to new activities and sectors due to various constraints such as minimal access to credit, information, or infrastructural facilities like power and roads; the high-school-dropout rate; and labor market rigidities—even as new opportunities are opened up by globalization.

The pace of poverty reduction in India has been slower than that in China not simply because Chinese growth has been faster, but also because the same one percent growth rate reduces poverty in India by much less, thanks largely to higher wealth inequalities (particularly in land and education). The Gini coefficient (a standard statistical measure of inequality, with a value of one indicating extreme inequality and zero indicating perfect equality) of land distribution in rural India was 0.74 in 2003; the corresponding figure in China was 0.49 in 2002. To a large extent this difference reflects a higher proportion of landless and near-landless people in India. In addition, educational inequality in India is among the worst in the world. According to the World Development Report 2006, the Gini coefficient of the distribution of adult schooling years in the population was 0.56 in India in 1998/2000, which is not only higher than China’s 0.37 in 2000, but even higher than almost all Latin American countries. To a large extent, this indicator reflects the high number of illiterate and near-illiterate people relative to the rest of the population in India.

The storyline about China and India’s “socialist slumber” is equally suspect. China and India have become poster children for market reform and globalization in much of the financial press, even though both countries’ economic policies with regard to privatization, property rights, and deregulation have departed demonstrably from free-market orthodoxy in many ways.

And what about the earlier period? Was it really an utter waste? While socialist control and regulations undoubtedly inhibited initiative and enterprise in both countries, the positive legacy of reforms undertaken in the ‘70s and ‘80s cannot be denied, particularly in China’s recent pattern of state-controlled capitalist growth.

China’s earlier socialist period arguably provided a good launching pad for market reform. That foundation provided wide access to education and health care; highly egalitarian land redistribution that created a rural safety net and thus eased the process of market reform, with all its wrenching disruptions and dislocations; increased female labor participation and education that enhanced women’s contribution to economic growth; and a system of regional economic decentralization (that linked the career paths of Communist Party officials to local area performance). County governments were in charge of production enterprises long before Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms set in, and, even more significantly, the earlier commune system’s production brigades evolved into the highly successful township and village enterprises that led the later phenomenal rise of rural industrialization.

In all these respects China’s legacy from the earlier period has been much more distinctive than that in India. When I grew up in India, I used to hear leftists say that the Chinese were better socialists than us. Now I am used to hearing that the Chinese are better capitalists than us. I tell people, only half-flippantly, that the Chinese are better capitalists now because they were better socialists then!

The earlier period’s legacy in both countries is also evident in the cumulative effect of the state’s active role in technological development. It is often overlooked that the Chinese have succeeded in international markets with more than simple labor-intensive products such as clothing, toys, shoes, and wigs. Both China and India (but China more so) have succeeded in exporting more sophisticated products than is usual in countries in their respective per capita income ranges: China, in consumer electronics, including computers and other information- and communication-technology-related goods, and auto parts; India, in software, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, steel, and auto parts. This performance is remarkable (though more in gross value of exports than in value-added terms, as some of the components and technology used in production are acquired from abroad) and is due primarily to sizeable skill and technological bases, enriched over the years of “socialist slumbering” by indigenous learning-by-doing and nurtured by government policies of building domestic capability—sometimes at the expense of static resource allocation efficiency.

Of course, there are many cases in which protection from foreign competition sheltered massive inefficiency. But the overall storyline is by no means so simple. Consider auto parts. For many decades both countries practiced protection of “local content” (of components) in automobiles, contrary to the orthodox free-trade policy prescription. As a result workers in the auto parts industry acquired skills necessary to compete successfully in the global economy and have now reached international best practice.

What about democracy’s role in economic growth? The much more dramatic success of China (and, earlier, that of other East Asian countries under authoritarian regimes) compared with India does not in any way prove the superiority of authoritarianism over democracy in matters of development. Authoritarianism is neither necessary nor sufficient for development. That it is not necessary is illustrated not only by today’s developed countries, but by scattered cases of recent development success: Costa Rica, Botswana, and now India. That it is not sufficient is amply evident from disastrous authoritarian regimes in Africa and elsewhere.

The relationship between democracy and development is much more complex than the conventional wisdom suggests. Even if we were not to value democracy for its own sake (or regard it as an integral part of development by definition), and looked at it in a purely instrumental way, democracy has at least four advantages from the point of view of development. Democracies are better able to avoid catastrophic mistakes, (such as China’s Great Leap Forward and the ensuing great famine that killed nearly thirty million people, or its Cultural Revolution, which may have resulted in the largest destruction of human capital in history) and have greater healing powers after difficult times. Democracies also experience more intense pressure to share the benefits of development, thus making it sustainable, and provide more scope for popular movements against industrial fallout such as environmental degradation. In addition, they are better able to mitigate social inequalities (especially acute in India) that act as barriers to social and economic mobility and to the full development of individual potential. Finally, democratic open societies provide a better environment for nurturing the development of information and related technologies, a matter of some importance in the current knowledge-driven global economy. Intensive cyber-censorship in China may seriously limit future innovations in this area.

All that said, India’s experience suggests that democracy can also hinder development in a number of ways. Competitive populism—short-run pandering and handouts to win elections—may hurt long-run investment, particularly in infrastructure, which is the key bottleneck for Indian development. Such political arrangements make it difficult, for example, to charge user fees for roads, electricity, and irrigation, discouraging investment in these areas, unlike in China where infrastructure companies charge full commercial rates. Competitive populism also makes it harder to cut losses resulting from experimentation in industrial policy in India, where retreating from a failed project—with inevitable job losses and bail-out pressures—has electoral consequences that discourage leaders from carrying out policy experimentation in the first place. Finally, democracy’s slow decision-making processes can be costly in a world of fast-changing markets and technology.

China is widely, and rightly, acclaimed for its decentralized development: in the 1980s and ’90s local industries flourished under the control of local governments and collectives. This aspect of industrialization has largely bypassed India so far, even though important constitutional changes favoring devolution of power to local governments were carried out in the ’90s. Of course, decentralization is not always a good thing for development. Some have complained that decentralization in post-Soviet Russia was growth-retarding, as provincial governments were captured by oligarchs, thus legitimizing the subsequent centralization of power by Vladimir Putin. Although egalitarian land reform in China may have helped avert the capture of local institutions by local elites—at least in the initial years of market growth—the problem has plagued regional decentralization in India and Russia.

But even China has had trouble with decentralization in recent years. With local party officials prospering in a reward system that emphasizes local economic performance (with access to profits of local collective enterprises and the power to privatize them), the central government in China is now finding it difficult to rein them in, particularly in matters of land acquisition (where local officials are often in cahoots with local commercial developers), toxic pollution and violation of consumer- product safety regulations (often in collusion with local businesses). The “harmonious society” mantra chanted by the central leadership has not yet succeeded in curbing the capitalist excesses of local business and officialdom. The centralization of tax reform since 1994 has reduced the incentives of the local bureaucracy to serve social needs, particularly in interior provinces. The lack of democratic-accountability mechanisms is, and will continue to be, felt acutely by local populations who face limits both in the types of economic growth they can pursue and in the delivery of social services.

In short, in the absence of democratic devolution, China’s much-celebrated regional decentralization may now be a source of much discontent and may undermine the economic growth it has done so much to foster.

A final element of conventional wisdom is that globalization has led to rising inequality, and that inequality-induced grievances, particularly in rural China, cloud the country’s political future and hence its economic stability. But the effect of globalization on inequality is difficult to disentangle from that of other ongoing changes (such as skill-biased technical progress due to new information and communication technology), and so the causal link between globalization and inequality is not always clear. Moreover, Chinese provinces with more global exposure and higher growth did not have a greater rise in inequality compared with the other provinces in the interior. Decline in agricultural growth in recent years, in both China and India, may also have something to do with the rise in aggregate inequality, as inequality is significantly lower in agriculture than in other sectors.

As for inequality-induced political instability, a frequently cited fact reported from official police records is that incidents of social unrest have multiplied nearly nine-fold between 1994 and 2005. While the Chinese leadership is right to be concerned about inequality, the conventional wisdom in this matter is somewhat askew, as has been pointed out by Harvard sociologist Martin Whyte and his team. Data from their 2004 national representative survey in China show that the presumed disadvantaged in rural or remote areas are not particularly upset by rising inequality. This may be because of the “tunnel effect,” a familiar concept in the literature on inequality: when you see other people prospering you are hopeful that your chance will soon come (you are more hopeful in a tunnel when blocked traffic in the next lane starts moving). This is particularly so with the relaxation of restrictions on migration from villages and improvement in roads and transportation. Farmers are incensed by forcible land acquisitions or the severe environmental damage of land, air, and water than they are by inequality. Chinese leaders have so far succeeded in deflecting the wrath felt toward corrupt local officials and in localizing and containing rural unrest.

It may seem counterintuitive but the potential for unrest is arguably greater in the currently booming urban areas where, along with the breaking of the real estate bubble, a possible global recession could ripple through the excess-capacity industries and financially-shaky public banks. With a more Internet-connected and vocal middle class, a recent history of massive worker layoffs, and a large underclass of migrants, urban unrest could be more difficult to contain.

When faced with political shocks, the Chinese leadership has a tendency to overreact, suppress information, and act heavy-handedly, unnecessarily exacerbating the problem. Still, China now has a very strong economy, which can act as a cushion, and provide more financial resources for assuaging local grievances.

Chinese and Indian economic performance has been far better in the last quarter-century than in the previous two hundred years—and this is one of the striking events in the recent history of the international economy. Other countries must adjust to this reality, and learn to treat the partial restoration of the earlier global importance of these two countries as an opportunity for trade, investment, and exchange of ideas, not as a threat. (We also need to work in tandem with them on the environment.) But we must remember that the story of their rise is more complicated and nuanced than standard accounts make out. That more complex story includes the positive legacy of China and India’s earlier statist periods, which offers general lessons for the process of development much too often ignored.

Source.
This marvelous, balanced research by Pranab Bardhan, a professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is highly recommended.

Knowledge-based Economy? China's Patent Filings are Far Ahead of India

According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the number of patents filed from India dropped from 831 in 2006 to 686 in 2007. That represented a decline of 17.45 per cent. India retained the 20th position it had in 2006. On the contrary, applications from China grew 38.1 per cent from 3,951in 2006 to 5,456 in 2007, helping it overtake the Netherlands to the 7th position.

If the long-time trend is considered, application from China rised from 1,295 in 2003 to 5,456 in 2007, a whooping 421% increase. India's application decreased from 764 to 686 during the same period.

China's telecommunication gear giant, Huawei Technologies, is now listed as the No. 4 company in the applicant ranking of all the companies in the world, only after Matsushita Electric Industrial from Japan, Philips Electronics from Netherlands and Siemens from Germany.

For more information, you can visit here and here.

Travel to India? Incredibly unsafe India

The rape of a 35-year-old foreigner, holding dual citizenship of France and Switzerland, in Pushkar a week ago (the complaint was filed only on Saturday) is the third such incident involving foreign tourists in the last few weeks, in Rajasthan. And this has seriously rattled the ministry of tourism and the tourism industry in general.

Minister Ambika Soni has called a high-level meeting of state tourism secretaries on January 24 to try and find a solution to this serious law and order problem. Recently, Union Tourism Secretary S. Banerjee wrote to all state governments, reminding them of the ministry’s earlier recommendation to deploy special police at popular tourist sites.

The number of foreign tourists in the country has been going up steadily. So has foreign exchange earnings: it was nearly $6,500 million in 2007, up 25 per cent from the previous year. Those in the industry fear the assaults could change all that.

“The dollar is falling, and it has affected our trade. This is somehow being compensated by greater tourist inflow. But if international tourists get concerned about their safety and begin choosing other Asian destinations like China and Singapore over India, the industry is doomed,” says Tahiruddin Tahir, president, Tour Guides Association at the Taj Mahal in Agra.

On Saturday, an American teacher’s wallet was stolen at the Taj. “Such incidents are being noticed and talked about more. The government needs to make tourists feel secure again,” Tahir says.

Agra has reported a number of cases of rape and sexual assault on tourists since September last year.

Ministry officials say law and order, which includes tourist safety, remains a state subject.

Meanwhile, any action the states have taken on Banerjee’s suggestion seems largely token. In Delhi, the tourism police has just about 80 personnel and 10 PCR vans for tourist assistance. This when government statistics reveal the Capital sees the highest number of tourists in the country (20 lakh in 2006). “Ten vans for a destination like Delhi is just not enough. They need to sensitise the entire police force to make tourists feel comfortable,” says a Delhi tourism department official.

Jane Rankin Reid, an Australian who has traveled extensively in India in the last 10 years, says: “I had to learn to cover my shoulders and not show my knees, which is hard to do in the heat. My bottom got pinched in Delhi a few times but to be honest, my bottom got pinched in Rome and London too.” Reid doesn’t subscribe to the view that it’s the colour of her skin that makes her a target. “I don’t think it is because I’m white. None of the sexual come-ons had racial overtones, just the desperation of men not knowing how to respect women.”

Reid has built this opinion over years of staying in India. For most other tourists, such ugly incidents could shape opinion. Countries like the US, UK, Australia, Canada and France have, in travel advisories, already warned citizens on the law and order situation here.

Source

Chinese Engineering: Tibet Railway - By Discovery Channel

Tibet Diary：Tibet in Two Americans' Eyes

In 2006 Only , 269 bombings Killed 7000 People In India

Many hyped India as a politically stable countries. Is that true? Here is a new report from India inside. 269 bombings happened in India in 2006 only with total of 7000, including ncluding 1,711 securitymen. The number is almost twice of the casualities US and its allies experienced in Iraq, an war zone, during the last 3 years.

Don't forget: No big countries are connected with these violence even India does a lot in other countries, includeing China. They are simple uprisings of local people. They request for religious freedom, for their rights, for their independence.

The following full report came from IndianExpress.

There were as many as 269 bombings across India last year and the National Security Guard’s National Bomb Data Centre says J&K topped the list with 78. But this year, Assam alone has seen over 60 explosions, up from 41 last year. In Naxal-hit Chhattisgarh, bombings climbed from 51 in 2005 to 61 last year — and the targets continue to include infrastructure like power transmission lines.

It’s in this backdrop that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will chair a meeting tomorrow of chief ministers on internal security. This upsurge in violence is also taking a terrible toll — 7,000 dead, including 1,711 securitymen, in militancy-related violence in J&K, North-East and the Naxal-affected states since 2004. Add to that another 450, the number of civilians killed in terror strikes, including the Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad blasts.

Assam has reported over 400 deaths in militant violence this year. According to the South Asian Terrorism Portal, 254 civilians, 17 security personnel and 137 militants died in the state until December 11 — a quantum jump from the 174 dead last year. The Union Home Ministry’s own figures say that 501 civilians and security personnel died in militant violence in the North-Eastern states.

Though government figures show a dip in the number of civilians killed in Naxal-related violence (134 until November 21 as against 367 last year), more securitymen have died this year — 204 as against 157 last year.

The only consolation, if it can be called that, comes from J&K where this year’s death toll stood at 252 (civilian and security personnel) in 684 incidents until November 20 — a sharp drop from last year’s figure of 551 in 1,316 incidents.

China's Investments in Africa: Sharing a Common Fate

This is a report about China's investments in Africa that started in 1950s. Many of them are not for commercial purpose. These videoes are good answers to western propagandas.

China's investment in Africa Part 1



China's investment in Africa Part 2



China's investment in Africa Part 3

India way behind China, world in innovation

New Delhi: India had a meagre 6,406 patents as compared to 182,385 in China and the world average of 846.71 patents in force in 2004, with the total number of patent filings by Indians per million population standing at 3.40 in 2004-05 as compared to the world average of 250.72 worked out on the basis of the world population of 6377.6 million.

Informing this in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, the India’s Minister of State for Industry Dr Ashwani Kumar also told that the number of patents in India in force was 6,857 in 2005.

According to the Minister, the world average of patents in force in 2004 was worked out on the basis of the world population of 6377.6 million as per the ‘State of World Population 2004’ report by United Nations Population Fund.

The ‘Statistics on Worldwide Patent Activity, 2006 Edition’ of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) also suggest that the number of patents in force worldwide in 2005 was about 5.6 million, up from 5.4 million in 2004.

However, Kumar said that as these numbers also include patents obtained in different countries for the same invention, it would not be feasible to draw a conclusion on the proportion of patents in force in India vis-à-vis those in force worldwide.

Taking about the steps taken to strengthen the processes to help creation of Intellectual Property Rights in the country, he said that the Government of India has invested Rs 153.00 crore for modernisation of intellectual property offices during the 9th and 10th Five Year Plans.

These include infrastructure development, computerization, human resource development and training and awareness on the processes of IPR.

While four new integrated intellectual property offices were set up in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, e-filing of patent applications was also made operational in July 2007.

The government has also commenced the work for setting up the National Institute of Intellectual Property Management at Nagpur.

The Minister said that seminars, conferences and workshops at national and international level have been organized for creating awareness and promotion of IPR.

To bring in global cooperation in the field of IPR, the government has signed Memoranda of Understandings with France, US, UK, European Patent Office, Japan, Switzerland and Germany.

Source: http://www.igovernment.in/site/india-way-behind-china-world-in-innovation/

China builds world's largest press forge

CHENGDU, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- China has started the building of an 80,000-ton press forge in Deyang, the southwestern Sichuan Province, paving the way for making large planes, a longtime dream of the nation.

The project, with an investment of 1.517 billion yuan (204.7 million U.S. dollars), has won the approval of the National Development and Reform Commission and is expected to be the world's largest when it is finished in two and a half years, said Zeng Xiangdong, project director and vice general manager of China National Erzhong Group Co. on Friday.

A large die-hydraulic press forge is one of the key instruments in making jumbo planes. Only a few countries, including the United States, Russia and France, have such facilities, according to Zeng.

The current largest press forge is 75,000-tons and is owned by Russia. All the press forges currently in China are below 40,000 tons, which are unfit for making key parts of very large planes and hence hinder the development of the aviation industry, equipment and manufacturing.

Chen Xiaoci, vice director of the press forge project, said the machine is designed by China National Erzhong Group and built in the company's compound.

The company has produced more than 400,000 die-forgings during the past 30-odd years for China's aviation industry, used in all the models of Chinese airplanes.

China started to build very large aircraft in 1970, only two years after Airbus went into production, but the project was later shelved despite a promising start.

After a decades-long suspension, the central government last year revived the blueprint in the 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) in order to meet the country's growing demand for air travel.

To prepare for the very large plane project, China began building its own regional jet, the ARJ-21 -- meaning "advanced regional jet for the 21st century" -- in 2002.

Only the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Britain and Spain currently have the ability to build very large aircraft, with the United State's Boeing and Europe's Airbus taking the lion's share of the international market.


Source.

Stupid Pope Slams Atheism: It Has Led to Cruel and Injust Ideologies

This is the news. Seems the guy does not know anything about the history of his own religion. He dees not know how brutal his own religion is and the injust ideologies his own religion has.

Just make fun of this guy.

More Than 2 million Kids Under 5 Died in India Last Year Only

Even Indian government and news medias often brag that or "India is the third largeat economy" and often connect India with "superpower". India's human development is worse than many African countries in many factors.


A new report by the U.N. Children's Fund or UNICEF, reveals that India accounted for more than two million of the 9.7 million children who died in the world before their fifth birthday last year. In other words, one-fifth of the worldwide deaths of children under the age of five occur in the populous South Asian country.

Victor Aguayo at UNICEF in New Delhi says it is now recognized that malnutrition levels in India are "unacceptably high."

The U.N. says India also has the largest pool of children who have never been immunized - about 9.5 million. These children are more vulnerable to diseases such as measles and diphtheria. (Source)

According to the World Factbook published by CIA, India's birth rate is about 2.2%. Simple calculation tells that about 10% of Indian newborns will die before they are 5 years old. That's human disaster.


Details in the report highlighting some stark realities. On the ‘human poverty’ rank devised for 108 developing countries, India ranks 62nd; even Kenya is better than us, at 60th place! This data is for 2004. In the category ‘children underweight for age 0-5’, our rank is 132nd, and India’s adult illiteracy rate is put at 39 per cent. Compare this with the adult illiteracy rate in Rwanda (35.1 per cent) and Malawi (35.9 per cent).

To those who love to talk about a “young India” against an “ageing China” and boast of how over 50 per cent of our population is below 25 years, the data from the CII/WEF study are thought-provoking.

Regular employment represents only 15 per cent of total employment in India, and employment in firms with more than 10 employees - only 4 per cent of total employment. This is the reality of Indian economy. (Source)

The News Dissector: How Does U.S. Mainstream TV Cover Venezuela?

Catholicals Lie, Fools Believe!

This report from guardian. It pefectly illustrated a chain of liars in western propogand machines and how the fools were cheated when they talk about China. Enjoy!

Beijing denied a story about an Olympic Bible ban spread by the rightwing media but it was actually a Catholic news service that shut it down

Richard Aregood
Monday November 12, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


China said atheletes are free to bring Bibles for personal use. Photograph: Chris Gardner/AP

The story had everything going for it. It was outrageous. It was emotionally laden. It involved suppression of religion by godless communists. The flurry of attention in the comments section of rightwing political and religious websites was instantaneous. The problem was that it wasn't true.

A recent editorial in the conservative New York Sun kicked off the fuss by citing a report from the Catholic News Service asserting that the Chinese government would bar athletes from bringing Bibles to the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. Pajamas Media, home of many a rightwing blog, followed up with a report, also citing CNS, and adding the strange cavil "if true".

Actually, the report, citing an Italian sports newspaper as a source, seems to have come from the Catholic News Agency, a totally different operation with a traditional religious outlook, one that features the text of the Pope's Sunday Angelus prayer and a "saint of the day." It was never carried by the Catholic News Service.
Then the Catholic News Service did something remarkable, using its nearly-new website, CNS News Hub. It strongly and convincingly denied ever running such a story and gave the dubious credit to CNA and the Italian paper, then went on to say in detail that there was no substance to the story about a Bible ban.

"We know that with the speed of the Internet and blogs that there was a need to do something like this," said Jim Lackey, the managing editor of CNS. "It's not our feelings about a story. We are just correcting the record."

He added: "When we started getting phone calls from Congressmen and from the state department asking 'what more can you tell me about your story?,' we decided to post the facts as we know them."

The facts, by the way, are that Bibles circulate freely in China, despite the Chinese government's bad record on religion and human rights. An official Chinese government statement said that it would prefer that athletes bring Bibles for personal use only, but stopped well short of a ban.

In fact, Olympic organisers in China said there would be no restrictions on Bibles in the Olympic village. Later, the reporter for the Italian newspaper unconvincingly defended his story by asserting that a ban on "pamphlets and materials used for any religious or political activity or display" meant Bibles, even after the Chinese issued a clarification changing the banned category to "promotional materials".

CNS did not end the flap. Internet controversies seem never to end, especially those that can be kept alive by people whose beliefs run deep. But CNS may have hit on something by clearly disclaiming a story via the web rather than distributing a counterbalancing story later that may never catch up with the original error.

Many Americans, for instance, still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre, despite six years of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, or that he had weapons of mass destruction, despite none having been found over those same six years.

"Were they simply wrong or did they knowingly build a case?," asks Brian Toolan, national editor of the Associated Press, of the Bush administration. "I don't know the answer".

The AP, being a cooperative of its member news outlets, has no website of its own, so it could not completely duplicate the CNS technique. Its practice has always been to quickly correct errors or misstatements on its wire.

But in the era of deliberate misrepresentation, that might not provide the clarification that it is intended to provide. Rudy Giuliani, the candidate for the Republican nomination, has let go with a couple of whoppers in the last couple of weeks, first claiming incorrectly that the British National Health Service has a markedly worse record for prostate cancer survival than is actually the case. Then, providing heavily cooked statistics, he claimed the disgraced Bernard Kerik, his former police commissioner, had been responsible for as much as eliminating crime in New York City.

In traditional, big market journalism, the choices are limited. If a source misrepresents or lies, Toolan said, "You are compelled to go back and correct." For serial offenders, you have to hope that reporters "instinctively and instantly go back and check everything".

Maybe the relatively tiny Catholic wire service has the beginning of an interesting idea. What would be the problem with media outlets, from newspapers to websites to television news, maintaining a website that focuses on mistakes - especially the flat out lies that they have carried?

Ha Ha! More than 2 Million from Democratic Taiwan island Living in Communist Mainland China

According to ChinaTimes, a leading news resources in Taiwan, more than 2 million people moved from Taiwan to Mainland China. That accounts almost one thenth of Taiwan's population.

Since the political chaos in Taiwan in 1990s, especially the horrible politically fighting on the island, economy is getting worse and worse. More and more are moving to Mainland China for businesses, jobs, education... reasons. They saw a place with promising future comparing with doomming island, and they decided to settle down.

Democracy is not panacea for socialty. Sometimes it could be the root of problems. Taiwan is a good example. The fastest economy growth happened in Taiwan only when the island was led by notorious dictator chiang kai shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo

Who Should Be Responsible for Toy Recalls

Forbes just published a commentary by Alan G. Hassenfeld, chairman and CEO of Hasbro. His words may reflect some facts:
--Misconception: China is one of the main culprits in all these recalls; it is their fault that our children are in danger.
--Fact: That is simply not true. Companies manufacture, import and sell products; countries do not. The Consumer Product Safety Commission rightly holds those who order the toys and bring them into the country responsible for the safety of those toys. Equally important is the fact that about 74% of the toys recalled were for design-related issues, not manufacturing-related ones. The designs are the primary responsibility of those who order the toys, not only of those who manufacture them. Let us take responsibility for our actions and not blame others.

--Misconception: China is responsible for the loss of American jobs in the toy industry.
--Fact: Again, not true; China is simply the latest country where production has concentrated so that its cheaper labor costs can translate into lower prices to consumers. Toy production started moving out of the United States over 50 years ago, going first to Japan, then to Taiwan and Korea and other Asian countries. It was in the mid-1980s that China began its export of toys.


Another study written by Professor Paul W. Beamish of the University of Western Ontario, Hari Bapuji and Andre Laplume, both of the University of Manitoba, also proved that China-made toys are at least as safe as any other countries, or even better. The toys made in other countries are even more likely caused by the manufacturing process, unlike in China, more likely caused by design faults.

In 2004, four firms recalled 150 million pieces of toy jewelery made in India because they contained excessive amounts of lead. In 2002, approximately 75,000 South Korean-made pedal-cars, retailing at between 100 to 300 US dollars, were recalled because of their high lead content, says the study.

Dalai Lama, A Hero in the Western World

Western media portrayed Dalai Lama is a peaceful person. You need to look at these pictures.

Skin from serfs' kids


Skin from serfs


Skin from a serf


Tibetan Lamaism Drum made by human skin.



Tibetan Lamaism flute made by human bone of legs, called gandong in tibetan laguage.


Tibetan Lamaism instrument for worship ceremony made by human Skull and finger bones.




A dying serf



A serf was fighting dogs for dog food.


Tibet tourture room used owned by Lama and landlord classes. This interesting room was still in operation as late as right before the communist revolution. Now a museum in Tibet.




A kind of serf locker. 4 serfs could be locked together


Serf's hand was chopped off by his owner


Serfs were chained by their owner



This was what Dalai used. Made from human head.


A serf whose eyes were removed for punishment by his owner


Anther serf whose eyes were removed for punishment.


So many serfs whose legs were cut off for punishment by his owner


A horn made from a serf's leg bone. It's serf owner's property.


Skin peeled off from a kid


Legs, arms, eyes from serfs because of the punishment.

Microsoft Website Blocked by Chinese Government

Some people on a forum recommended http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org to check if a web is blocked by Chinese government.

I checked http://www.microsoft.com, the official website for the largest software company on this planet, and interestly found that it was blocked.

The more I tested and more interesting things I found.

I then tested http://www.xinhuanet.com/ and http://www.gov.cn/ the web portals for Chinese Xinhua News Press and Chinese government (Both have English version. Go to click the English). Both were blocked too.


It is very funny that many non-brain westerners belive in that website (go to check the discussion section of that website).

US-design Runs into Trouble Again

Right after Mattel's late apology to China for its own design flaws that caused 85% of its toys recalls, another US company, Simplicity, is recalling one million infant cribs after 3 deaths caused by its design flaws.

This time many western medias became smarter a little bit. They did not put "made in China" phrase in their news titles, but some indecent, misleading medias such as ABC Action News in Florida, WNBC in New York, RTT news in New York, Medical News in UK, The Gate - National Journal in Washington DC，Conde Nast Portfolio in New York, Kansas City Star in Missouri, Forbes, Reuters, CBC News, CNN, ... are still associating "China-made" with the recalls and ignoring the root of the cause: US-design.

China is a scapegoat of US-design again!!