World Watching And Politics

News In SE Asia

Posted on by Laughingnomad

China, Cambodia, the Philippines, India and Burma are banning or reducing their rice exports in order to conserve enough supply for their local populations. Reasons for supply and demand are complex and theories abound. Iran and Indonesia are expected to place orders to Thailand the middle of this year. Thailand is working on a measure to sell rice at determined prices which are higher than the market price to slow exports. So you can expect the price of rice, especially Basmati and Thai Jasmine to go up adding to inflation.

Meanwhile the Bangkok Post had a front page story warning young boys not to seek early castration. The boys apparently are thinking that castration, comparatively cheaper than a sex change operation, will yield similar results like smooth skin and other femine traits. Now, any doctor performing the surgery on boys below the age of 18 without parental consent could have their medical certificates temporarily revoked. The owners of clinics performing the operation on boys under 18 without parental consent could also face a one-year jail term and a maximum fine of 20,000 baht ($636 U.S.).

There is an uproar in Bangkok about developers building high-rise buildings that reflect heat and sun glare. Developers are supposed to be required to use glass material that reflects no more than 30% sunlight. Hey, this might be the answer to Portland’s grey skies!

A Question I Asked Myself

Posted on by Laughingnomad

How did China learn how to spin Tibet?

From Salon.com

By Andrew Sullivan

“Trust a public relations professional living in Beijing to write by far the best analysis I’ve seen of the Olympic-size mess that China has created for itself through its actions in Tibet. Writing in his blog Image Thief, William Moss provides detail and perspective that significantly outclass How the World Works’ own effort to make sense of recent events.

It’s a must-read for China watchers. The entire piece is great, but one section jumps out. Here, Moss is summarizing the ways in which China has effectively managed perceptions of the riots for a domestic audience.

For a good overview of the Chinese approach to all of this, see Mark Magnier’s interesting article on China’s P.R. efforts around the Tibet riots. It includes this damning quote from Chinese blogger and journalist Michael Anti:

“The [Chinese] government is showing more confidence and learning more about spin,” said Michael Anti, a well-known Chinese blogger on a Nieman fellowship this year at Harvard. “They’ve learned more PR tactics from Western people. They see the way the White House and the Pentagon do it.”

Yet another legacy for the current administration to be proud of: teaching the Chinese Communist Party how to spin.”

High Tech In China

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I have not been able to access Wikipedia or the external links to Blogspot and Bootsnall blogs since I have been in China. My daughter-in-law who lives in Beijing says that she often can access Wikipedia by going to Answers.com first.

Interesting.

As small as Jinghong is there are internet cafes every few yards on the street where I am staying…each filled with 50 to a 100 spikey-haired bed-head boys all playing video games. Internet usage is very inexpensive and China is very concerned about young people becoming addicted to computer games. I use the internet and they are there. I walk by hours later and the same ones are there! The internet places sell instant noodles and drinks so they don’t even have to leave to eat! At the request of parents China has even introduced “recovery” programs.

Related: The beginning of March, China is cutting the cost of mobile phone usage by 50%. Every other person already has phones almost permanently attached to their ears!

On To Jinghong

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Too cold to do anything in Kunming so am flying out today to Jinghong in the south of China where it is reportedly warm. Was in Jinghong in the tropical Xishuangbanna Region in December 2004 when it was much warmer than this year.  Lonely Planet says there are over 800,000 people  in Jinghong, the capitol, and the many surrounding minority villages. It will be fun to go there again. It is unusually cold in Kunming and nothing is heated…I mean nothing…not hotels…not restaurants…nothing… including my hotel room. During this unusually cold winter there is an energy crisis in China and President Hu has called on the people to conserve. But the heat pad under my bottom sheet is toasty and I can lie in bed and watch Channel TV Asia with information provided by Reuters out of Singapore…but am not sure.

Big deal on TV the last couple days is Spielberg’s resignation as artistic director of the Olympic games. President Hu (who?) says politics shouldn’t be mixed with the Olympics. But he doesn’t mention the fact that China is the biggest provider of arms to the Sudan, of course. Or that China is blocking a UN Security Council resolution against Sudan because China gets most of Sudan’s oil. Guess Spielberg et al figured it doesn’t do any good to talk nice to China and this was the only way to get it’s attention. A Chinese official says it is not China’s foreign policy to react to criticism.  BTW, China is very worried about the possibility that demonstrations will mar the games.

And then there is the case of the two spies for China that were arrested by the U.S. President Who says the accusations against China’s spying is a bunch of hooey. He didn’t say it that way of course. He says the U.S. is trying to start up the cold war again.

So it goes…

I plan on uploading pictures of Josh’s menu items when I get to a place where I can use my own computer.  He says that small groups of the Olympic committee have been meeting at the Hilton for the last four years, that during the Olympics the hotel will be 95% full with the entire Committee and that he is bracing for the walloping restaurant business.

Why Read Political Blogs-Left To Right

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I am waiting for the parts to arrive so I can get the bumper fixed on my car. In the meantime I am wondering how I am going to know who to vote for in 2008 and beyond.

I have realized in the last year, during which I have had the time to scour the internet for news, is that in order to ascertain the truth of events (at least the most truth possible) it is imperative to get your news from multiple sources…daily. Daily because one investigative article builds on another and may even be an answer to someone else’s article in another media report.

You learn which writers and which news sources have what biases. One writer may have some investigative information that others don’t have. Some writers get their information from the ground. Others simply parrot government and military press releases with no added critical analysis derived from independent fact checking.

Television news reports skim over the top and are even more subject to bias in the way that it is presented and there is no time for background investigative detail unless it is a special report.

Internet political blogs (right and left) have the added advantage of being able to compare other blog reports, mainstream press articles & pronouncements by politicians and others that often reveal conflicting statements, inconsistencies, denials, biases and even outright lies. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert do this on Comedy Central using videocasts. (Read what I wrote earlier.)

And you know what the biases are upfront. No hidden agendas. And it is time-saving. You don’t have to sift through hundreds of blogs and media articles…the bloggers do it for you, although I do screen out rants from ideologues. Then you can compare the blogs with your own knowledge and biases. It’s civic discourse…the engine that drives democracy.

Bertrand Russell once said: “If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.”

This human tendency is what we are up against with information that cuts against the conventional wisdom or prevailing media narrative. This is particularly true when it comes to issues like media bias, where isolated examples that contradict the prevailing view are easy to explain away as aberrations. The only way to change our biases that conform to conventional wisdom is to keep piling up the evidence until its aggregate weight becomes impossible to ignore.

The complication for the reader is that politicos with an agenda know this so they will continue to get their message out…repeatedly. So how do we know we are “piling up the evidence” (somtimes dubious at best) or just succumbing to propaganda? Deciphering the “Fourth Estate” is hard work.

Of course all this takes time away from family or the latest ball game. I usually skim media alerts in my email inbox with headlines from several media outlets like the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, New York Times and the LA Times. Certain journalists have more credibility with me than others. For example, in the WaPO I read anything by Robin Wright, fluent in Arabic and an expert on the Middle East. The LA Times often covers Mexico. William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, is the neocon voice of the current administration. Then I check a few good blog sites that often reference and link to other pertinent blogs and media sources.

I read mainstream media reports mainly to ascertain what news most people are getting that help inform popular opinion. However, there are many weekly alternative newspapers. There are international news sources that help balance the editorial positions of mainstream U.S. media. For example, Al Jazeera is one that helps me to know what news the Middle East is getting even though I cannot read Arabic news sources. Blogs also frequently draw on international sources. International news also helps me understand foreign views of the U.S and it’s policies.

The oft-quoted Salon.com includes The Blog Report, Your Guide to the Political Blogosphere-Left, Right and Everywhere with links to liberal sites like the award-winning Hullabaloo and moderately conservative sites like Andrew Sullivan’s <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/&quot;Daily Dish, a blog for The Atlantic magazine. If you want a libertarian viewpoint go to the widely read Instapundit written by a University of Tennessee law professor.

There are hundreds of others. I try to find the ones I feel I can trust. And even then I know that writers often tend to leave out things (intentionally or unintentionally) that do not support the point of their piece.

Whether you are for or against a particular issue, Jeff Greenwald, a respected and often quoted blogger on Salon.com has laid out a good case for the critical importance of political blogging. He says in his latest blog entry that
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Oaxaca Zocalo Planton 2007

Posted on by Laughingnomad

There are no uniformed police in the Zocalo where a new planton (encampment) of teachers and the APPO constructed its plastic awnings and banners on Monday June 18, but there are plenty of undercover police. You can tell…beefy well-fed hombres…nice new polished shoes…cell phones in use or on hips.

Teachers have not closed the classrooms this year. Teachers and APPO have established a rotating presence in the Zocalo…there are no tents and participants retire elsewhere for the night. But the Zocalo is alive with vendors, disco music, crowds of people watching video replays of government attacks.

Less confrontational now, civil society groups just seem to be keeping up a slow steady pressure.

Mexico’s High Court Acts

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Local watchers are watching cautiously. Nancy, a local expat, explains: “The Supreme Court of Mexico has decided to appoint a commission to investigate serious violations of human rights which occurred in Oaxaca between May 2006 and January of 2007.

Those violations included the attack on sleeping protesters on June 14, 2006, and the subsequent murder of at least 25 sympathizers of the popular movement, along with 575 arbitrary detentions and more than 300 wounded. No-one has been charged with any of those crimes. The alleged murderers of the American Brad Will were jailed and promptly released.

According to Noticias of June 20, the Court justices rejected the attempt by Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, (URO) to prevent the investigation after, he said he “accepted the recommendations” of the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH). URO’s lawyers argued that such “acceptance” was sufficient.

The Court stated it is not. Nor is the court limited by CNDH recommendations, nor is it limited to wrongdoing by state officials –federal persons such as the Federal Preventive Police were also denounced by the aggrieved APPO activists for violations including sexual assault and torture.
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Oaxaca June 14, 2007

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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by Diana
June 16, 2007

It’s 4am in Oaxaca on June 14, 2007, which marks one year since the protesting teachers were violently evicted from the zócalo. And this year, no one is going to sleep through it. Firecrackers sound throughout the city, one louder than the next, a steady crescendo that lasts several hours. All over the city, the dogs howl.

Last year at this time exactly, a thousand police armed with dogs, clubs, rubber bullets and indiscriminate quantities of teargas invaded the teachers’ sit-in and violently evicted protestors as well as destroying the radio that represented them, Radio Plantón.

Teachers had camped out in the center of the city, demanding government investments to improve quality of public education in Mexico. The attack on the teachers union sparked one of the biggest, most inclusive social movements in Oaxaca’s history, which, in spite of continuous repression, has bravely mobilized over the last year demanding the resignation of state governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and attention to collective discontent over lack of transparency, accountability and basic human rights.

La lucha sigue…

A year later, despite the arbitrary arrests, torture, and assassinations as well as divisionism, infiltration and attempts of political parties to co-opt the APPO, the popular movement commemorated their triumph in the face of last year’s repression in an impressive show of numbers.
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June 14 Symbolic Strike

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On June 14, this thursday, there will be a megamarch at 10:00 am (daylight savings time) from the crucero of the aeropuerto to the zocalo.

There will be a symbolic strike encampment in the zocalo, the teachers say 10% of their number, which mean 7000 people. There is no info on how long they plan to stay.

Barricades, installed from 17:30 to 21:00, will be installed in commemoration of last year’s blocking of several major streets.

The Popular Guelaguetza will take place on Cerro del Fortin on July 16.

Tourists!!!: Come for the Popular Guelaguetza, it’s free!

Below is an excerpt from the historic chronicle of the movement, translated by Nancy Davies from the book by Victor Raul Martinez Vasquez.

The teachers movement in 2006 and the 14th of June, 2006 (book text page 60)
by Victor Raul Martinez Vasquez

As in every year, in 2006 Section 22 on the first of May presented its annual document of demands, this time containing 17 general points and others relative to each specific education level and methods.
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Aung San Suu Kyi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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In August of 2002, next door to a restaurant in the small village of Taunggy, Burma, I struck up a conversation with a young university student who was tending a small bookstore. “Can everyone speak (out) in America,” he asked. “Yes, we can,” I said, thinking I will not tell him about “politically correct” speech. He nodded sadly.

A few people, forbidden to talk about politics with foreigners, tried oblique approaches to the subject. One man with delicious donuts on a platter came up to me at the market and said to me in perfect English that he used to be an English teacher. Then he disappeared and returned a few minutes later with his wife who wanted to meet me. “She wants to go to America-so bad,” he said. I made several attempts to ask him to have tea and then dinner with us but was disappointed when he looked furtively around him and told me he couldn’t do that. The government has forbidden the people to talk to foreigners about politics but they are afraid to be seen talking to you (a foreigner) at all as it could mean trouble for them.

However, in Bagan our hired tour guide for a day to view the pagodas, told me that some Americans once told him that that there was a lot of fighting in Burma but that he reassured them there was no fighting in his country. I bit my tongue thinking of the BBC special the night before on satellite TV (that few in Burma can afford). It described the fighting between the ethnic minorities and the military near the Thai border where camps harbored thousands of refugees. American and European doctors regularly cross the border under cover of fire to care for the Karen and Shan tribal people who are suffering from a government policy of ethnic cleansing by burning their villages and killing the people outright or overworking them to death in forced labor groups. I’ll bet he is a government informer,” I said to Bob. “I think so too,” Bob said.

I have been watching the efforts of the international community to free Aung San Suu Kyi, the freely elected leader who has been under house arrest for 4 years and now for a 5th.

Suu Kyi’s Freedom Struggle
The Boston Globe
Published: May 21, 2007
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