china

"The ceaseless churning of factories and automobile engines in and around Beijing has led to this: hundreds of flights canceled since Sunday because of smog, stores sold out of face masks, and many Chinese complaining on the Internet that officials are failing to level with them about air quality or make any improvements to the environment."

"Zhou Juejiang, 24, has lost multiple opportunities because she has hepatitis.

“In 2005, I applied for a job and I voluntarily informed the company I'm a carrier,” recalled the native of Gansu province. “I got so emotional on the phone I cried. I promised to work hard. They say they would discuss it with superiors and never responded.”

“I got turned down by lots of employers,” she continued. “My only choice seemed to be to return to my village and do farming, which was the only job that didn't require medical checkup.”

"Two months ago she took advantage of India’s powerful and wildly popular Right to Information law. With help from a local activist, she filed a request at a local government office to find out who had gotten the grants while she waited, and why. Within days a local bureaucrat had good news: Her grant had been approved, and she would soon get her check.

"It was October 2003, and the national broadcaster CCTV carried live coverage of the momentous event, from Mr. Yang’s famous pleasantries uttered in space — “I feel good” — to the instant that workers opened the capsule door to reveal the pale but smiling face of a hero, offering irrefutable evidence that China’s maiden manned space voyage had gone off without a hitch.

Or had it?

"The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.

One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.

Another huge coup for Obama if this happens - after 8 years of muscle flexing and failure by Bush, in one year Obama manages to calm both China and Russia down, get Russia to agree to a new arms deal, get China to be more cooperative in internation trade and currency issues, and get both of their support in dealing with Iran.  Way to go!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/business/global/09yuan.html?hp

"The one constant is its growing importance. Censorship used to be the sleepy province of the Communist Party’s central propaganda department, whose main task was to tell editors what and what not to print or broadcast. In the new networked China, censorship is a major growth industry, overseen — and fought over — by no fewer than 14 government ministries.

This just makes me mad... if you were trying to damage the great barrier reef it'd be hard to do better than these asses, and it all happened out of stupidity, laziness, and greed.  "You want me to take my tanker full of coal and oil AROUND your nature preserve?  Screw that, hippy!  That's expensive and slow, I'm just gonna go right through!"  I'm suprised they don't have GPS tags on all ships like that by now, and just automatically track them, and fine them to oblivion if they go off course.

"Chinese authorities have defended the six-month detention of lead poisoning victims who were seeking medical care, saying the punishment was necessary for "public education".

Police in Jiahe, Hunan province, blocked a bus carrying 53 villagers who were on their way to get health checks last September, according to Chinese media.

As much as the thought of sewage and bleach in my food bothers me, I think it's even more disheartening that the people exposing it get threatened...

"Professor He declined to be interviewed this week. China Daily quoted one of his colleagues as saying that the authorities had pressured the professor to stop talking to the media, and that he had also received personal threats."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/asia/01shanghai.html?ref=global-...