Slashdot Mirror
China to Control Reports of Foreign News Agencies
afa writes "According to Xinhuanet.com, Xinhua News Agency on Sunday promulgated a set of measures to regulate the release of news and information in China by foreign news agencies. From the article: 'Where a foreign news agency violates the Measures in one of the following manners, Xinhua News Agency shall give it a warning, demand rectification within a prescribed time limit, suspend its release of specified content, suspend or cancel its qualifications of a foreign news agency for releasing news and information in China, on the merits of each case.'"
However you slice it, that is bad.
before the outrage ensues, let me just point out that this is the exact same sort of thing that the United States Government is doing with regards to the internet.
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Is it just me, or is it completely unacceptable that the thoughts of over one-sixth of the world's population are being controlled by an unelected committee of 150 people?
http://outcampaign.org/
And from the submitted article it seems that they're even prepared to revoke the state-defined status of any international news-agency who contravenes these measures in any way.
What also bothers me is the notion of vetting this stuff at source. Are the XNA going to demand that news agencies do as Google have done, procuding a secondary, vetted, approved version of the news? Google argued their case for doing so to the international web community (successfully or otherwise, depends on your POV - they're getting the revenue from it anyway), but most international news agencies pride and extol themselves for their independence and impartiality. Will they bow to the same pressure in order to, as Google said (again, my own interpretation), "gain a foothold in China and at least keep its information borders actively moving traffic, however restricted"?
Scary stuff indeed.
Meta will eat itself
As someone who is in China, I read the English version of the "China Daily" as often as it is delivered to me.
This is a paper you would be within your rights to class as an "official English newspaper" from the Chinese government.
But guess what?
It contains mistakes. The reports found within, if they are the official story, are erroneous.
As alarming as it may be that the Chinese Government is trying to control what foreign publications publish in China, what is of greater concern is the dubious accuracy of their own reporting.
A case in point is a recent *front page* story on a lake where all of the fish died. The story in the paper ran with the excuse of the water temperature dropping from 40C down to 20C. If you do some research on oxygenation of water, you will find that the opposite is true: a lower water temperature holds more oxygen. Which then leads you to wonder, what really happened? (Most likely the continued hot weather caused the water to become too hot and the fish were going to die whether the temperature dropped or not.)
This is not an isolated incident in the reports I read of the English version of "China daily".
Until the Chinese can get the facts and figures straight/correct, punishing outside news agencies for reporting something differently than the "official story" is ridiculous.
FWIW, if you watch CNN, on the weekend they ran a story about 30 years after Mao's death. In China this was shown up until the point of where it started to show black and white film.
As 2008 approaches, look for a lot of activity on this front.
How funny, in Orwell's 1984 the party did also "demand rectifications" of facts. They weren't falsifying historic records, noooo sir. The party had it's thruth, and the press had to follow. If the party changed it's mind, all records had to be changed too. In fact, it has always been that way.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
When will people learn you can't control, regulate or do much of anything with the internet?
They never will, because it's not true.
What's that you say?
At its heart, the Internet is simply a form of communication. All other forms of communication are regulated, why wouldn't the Internet? The fact that it's new doesn't mean that it's un-regulatable so much as the powers that be haven't regulated it... yet.
Give it time. And then the "next big thing" will come along, and the Internet will be no more interesting than a ham radio today.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
If The Measures isn't the best Orwellian name possible for a set of repressive rules, I don't know what is.
What's that you say?
You can't regulate the airwaves?
Except that you can - sure people can build pirate radio equipment, but they can also rob houses. (just as illegal) People choose not to for various reasons - legallity being one of them.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
[Dr. Evil] No...not really...
I wonder which "good citizen" thought up THIS brain-damaged policy.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
you forgot Jesus.
Screw that! It's completely unacceptable that the thoughts of one-sixth of the world's population be controlled by ANYONE, elected or otherwise.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
i find it sad that most of the big companies (yes, even google) are complying, just because china is such a huge potential market.
especially for news agencies, what a better way to defend freedom of press than to comply with these regulations !
Actually Palestine had democratic elections - unfortunately they were won by Hamas, a terrorist organisation. This rather puts the west in a tricky position - what do you do when people democratically elect extremely objectionable leaders?
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
While the conservatives in China are in presumable fear that the extension of freedom on information in China will cause more controversy on both social and political issues, which the old generation in the country are not familiar with, the youth do not seem adept to handle with such issues as well. The lack of a good tradition of democracy and the long-lasting habit of authoritarianism dating back to, perhaps, thousands of years ago, finally weaved the current dilemna of 'mordern' China, which requires a fast switch from tradition to mordern in all levels, aspects, perspectives, culturally and psychologically.
The insolvable question which direction China will go is still implicit for all observers around this world. Like an subtle differential equation that has a chaotic solution, the result relies on two sorts of not-so-unreliable variables - that is, what is it now and how we are going to change it.
No one of any import has ever bothered to stand up to the news agencies there up till now. No one wants to risk having access to all those Chinese revenues cut off.
Seems simple logic to me. Give a bully what he demands often enough and they begin to see it as their right.
-On the internet, no one cares if you're a dog.-
Recall that US dictates who gets to be called a terrorist organisation.
Hamas chose a moderate Palestinian Prime Minister to meet Israel half way. That move to moderation should have been met with a carrot not a stick. Just because the leadership was objectionable to Israel, it shouldn't automatically be objectionable to the world. What if Sinn Fein was kept out of politics just because they are the political wing of the IRA?
Accept their decision. Especially if the elected party does not begin to dismantle the democracy under which they were elected. Democracys greatest flaw is that it can self-destruct. But so can all other non-utopian/dystopian forms of governments.
Hm, I thought Afghanistan and Iraq was liberated already by the great Uncle Sam???
Magna res est vocis et silentii temperamentum
So the cost of being a journalist in China is that you're not allowed to be a journalist in China?
Stuff 'em. If all they want is sanitized misinformation, let them manufacture it themselves. They make everything else anyway, so it shouldn't be a big deal.
If only the US's news censorship policy were this straightforward and clearly documented, it'd be a lot easier to comply with it! Maybe China can set an example.
Here we go with the China bashing again. Criticism from countries which comply with all the international laws for human rights and freedom of speech need only apply. So that discounts the US, UK and a large swaythe of the european countries. I mean who ever heard of news being censored in the US or UK. No way never happened. And of course our government agencies would never try to discredit anybody trying to tell a story other than the offical government line. Never. Oh wait. "Dr David Kelly" anyone?. How about the Pentagon's censoring images of coffins coming home. Or maybe the outing of Valerie Plame? And of course the official story is always correct. WMDs anyone? No? how about some Tillman? We need to get our *own* houses in order before we lay into some other country's ethics on free speech and personal liberties when it comes issues of national reputation/security.
How is that related to China sensoring? (sic)
Because it's the exact same attitude; specifically, that a local government can control what companies operated legally in other countries do on the internet.
Here's an idea: If a specific country doesn't like what companies in other countries are doing on the internet, they're perfectly free to CUT THEMSELVES OFF FROM THE INTERNET.
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Let's hope this makes people think twice about the truth value of news coming from dictatorships without a free press.
:
... etc ...
Not just China, unfortunately, but for a long list
China
North Korea
Iran
Afghanistan
Iraq
Palestine
Better add the US to that list.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
But that's okay...to err is human.
This will stop the US propaganda which is desperately trying to destabilize china and force an unneeded war on them in order to "Liberate" them.
I'm from Europe. But what I wrote above it exactly what the majority of the world expects from your administration(s) in the long run.
Article 35 Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. ( http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/english/constitution/c onstDetail.jsp?pages=3 )
But then again, is news speech? Is an opinion speech?
If you look at their constitution, it provides for all the freedoms one might want and the support of a caring government.
No need to be any more specific. History is written by winners and every story has a POV. Some reporters/newspapers may strive to be objective, but that doesn't make their story "the truth".
So you view controlling the movement of information on the internet
and controlling the movement of money on the internet
as exactly the same thing?
That's kinda weird.
Cuz, y'know, I seriously disagree with the recent movements by the U.S. government against online gambling, but I can't conceive of equating that at ANY level with movements against freedom of speech or the press. After all, there's already enormous precedent everywhere in the world for treating the movement or use of money as something that there's nothing weird or authortarian about governments regulating; even in places where people would be horrified by the idea of a government telling a newspaper what to print, the government does things like tax all commercial tranactions and regulate everything banks do very strictly and very few people have an actual problem with this. So which is regulating internet gambling more like-- regulating a newspaper? Or regulating a bank?
Anyway, aside from that, I never understand this thing where people try to excuse tyranny by [some government or group] by pointing wildly at [some other government or group], and going, hey, but those OTHER guys, they're evil TOO! Uh... so? That doesn't make group #1 any less evil...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
you realize, of course, that that list translates into not being allowed to criticize the chinese government, right?
you can think of gw bush govt anyway you want... actually, that's the whole point: you can sit here on slashdot or anywhere else and criticize gw bush and his govt all you want
but if you were to criticize the govt in china?
you would be raise the attention of these nice people
so at best, you are naive, at worst, you are seriously deluded about what really goes on in china
basically, you see the innocuous language above, "to protect chinese sovereignty" etc, and take those bureaucratic words at their least harmful interpretation
oh if only that were the truth
but i am afraid you are quite mistaken about what really goes in china with censorship
go ahead, search the internet, do some research on the subject if you don't believe me. confirm what i am saying via multiple sources from multiple countries
and keep in mind while you are doing that research that someone in china could not be doing the same thing: their access is filtered and watched
next time, please educate yourself a little before you start screaming high holy moral indignation
you're just revealing your own ignorance about reality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Major news agency can outsource thier reporting operations to "independent" reporters, who could send their reports encripted. Soviet Russia [:)] tried to enforce such a ban, during the time than there was no internet and international phone conversation were few and expensive, with very limited success. All that they achievd was that mostly worst and exaggerated news got out and created "Empire of Evil" image.
- what else is new?
I just can't help thinking that the new Great Digital Wall of China will be as ineffective to stop the information flow as the old Great Wall of China was at stopping The Manchus around 400 years ago.
Unfortunately?? there will be no traces left after the digital one... once this is past history.
"The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be."
- Robert Fulghum
Shut the fuck up. It is the duty of democracies to upgrade all military and single party dictatorships and end this sort of crap forever.
In the American Civil War, the majority of people in the Confederacy were content with their government and its actions. Should the world community have respected their right to govern their country?
Priorities have changed since the mid 19th century. Today the appropriate question would be: Does your aspiring nation seeking recognition have oil? Valuable minerals perhaps? Because in this day and age that, followed by a favorable exploitation deal with a major US/EU corporation belonging to the right people, is the qualifier for instant recognition by the great powers and thus the international community by default. Otherwise your aspiring nation will be caught indefinitely in 'prevent regional political fragmentation' hell which usually means that you can't buy weapons but the megalomanic dictator keeping the region in order for Washington and its favorite allies can buy them at discounted rates from select US/EU defense contractors. So you see that you are in for an up hill struggle if your aspiring nation can't bring anything of solid business value to the table. This is nothing personal mind you, just a solid mix of market driven economics and realpolitik. The Confederate misfortune was that cotton simply wasn't valuable enough a resource to risk pissing off the Northern states by supporting the rebels who into the bargain supported slavery which was rapidly becoming an international abomination at the time which was another barrier to anybody contemplating supporting them. Hmmmmmm..... perhaps priorites haven't changed all that much after all?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Lecture - "Distorted Morality". Lists easily verifiable cases of same behaviour by US & the US Media.8 548733881
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=405452304
You forgot to include information coming from organisations like Murdoch's "News International".
There may not be (too many) restrictions on the press in the West, but what use is this if the news organisations distort the news for their own interests.
I don't know about you but after this part:
<i>"According to Xinhuanet.com</i>
I stopped reading. Take your own stand and don't even listen to this kind of crap coming from known liars and murders.
I cannot believe there is anyone in the world who would actually fall for something this transparent. On the offchance you're just stupid and not trying to actually deceive people, let's turn this around for a minute. Although not everyone who reads this site is American, and neither the article nor the post you are replying to mention America, you seem to want really badly to distract us from thinking about China and get us to think about America instead. You want to talk about America? Fine. Let's talk about America.
Let's talk about the Bush Administration. Everything the Bush Administration has done in the last five years, they have done in the name of preventing people from "endangering America's national security, reputation and interests".
Are there, say, any things the Bush Administration has done in the last five years that you disagree with?
If so, why? After all, they were only trying to prevent the endangering of America's national security, reputation and interests.
Let's say the Bush Administration announced they were going to start banning importing or reading of foreign newspaper articles or websites that "endanger America's national security, reputation and interests". Would you at all mistrust them with that power? Would you complain?
If so, why? In this hypothetical example, they say they're only going to go after publications which "endanger America's national security, reputation and interests". What's so horribly bad and oppressive about that?
And the answer of course is obvious, which is that something like "endangering national security, reputation and interests" is so vague that if you write a blank check to anyone in a position of governmental power to take action aginst it, they can define "national security, reputation and interests" to suit their own needs and use that blank check to shut down simply anything and anybody they don't like. Likewise, pretty much anything that tries to hold any government accountable for its actions can be easily labelled by that government "undermin[ing] national unity". Almost any group any government doesn't like can be easily labelled an "evil cult". I don't think I need to explain the problem with the clause "include[s] other content banned by Chinese laws and administrative regulations".
Which part of Xinhua's little announcement/article is horribly bad and oppressive? The whole thing. It's dressed up in pretty language, sure, but hey, fascism always is.
What China is doing here is unambiguously, unconditionally wrong, and what America is or isn't doing has absolutely nothing to do with that. You can try to make excuses for China; you can be an instrument of a totaltarian government if for some reason you get off on that. But you can't change what China is doing by dressing it up with pretty words.
In the meanwhile, I never cease to be saddened to see how much mileage propagandists can get out of accusing others of "bias"...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Another problem with reporters ... some (like china) just plainly lie. I was quite surprised to find this blog report.
What does one trust ? It's a hard question these days.
Why ? When was the last journalist killed in the US for writing his mind ? China executed some just last month, and so did Iran.
There's a lesson in this.
Hey Dixie Chicks, and the rest of your mistreated ilk, do you now know what censorship is?
Give it time. And then the "next big thing" will come along, and the Internet will be no more interesting than a ham radio today.
I'm not so sure there will be "another" big thing in interpersonal communications conceptually. Ham radio is a means, the internet is also that but what we had with the internet was a breakthough into a wild new frontier for most of the global population. While I see technological progress in the future, I don't see conceptual progress. Now that the frontier has been opened I simply see increasing restriction.
The internet was an enabler`that allowed people to transcent government and geographic barriers to exercise freedom of thought, expression and information. In essence, the internet decentralised power and gave birth to the premise of the hive mind and global Democracy of the people while at the same time allowing nearly limitless exploration into new and uncharted virtual worlds.
What then would be the next big thing to top that?
Mans individual and unfettered ability to leave the planet and sustain himself while exploring the galaxies?
It would have to be something of that magnitude which I don't see happening for a very long time.
What we have in the here and now is an unprecedented opportunity that the legislative bodies of government and the plotters of human exploitation is hell bent to screw the fuck up and so far have managed to do a good job of it and at that, are just getting started.
so why would you completely misrepresent what i believe
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
thank god i use anonet to submit my work from within one of those listed spaces.
Let's just give them no news at all and pretend they don't exist.
Signed, Chinese
Sources please? There are punishments that can be handed out other than execution. Smear campaigns, losing your job, what if you've got a family to feed? I think being unable to work in the proffesion you've trained most of you life for would be the equivelant of an economic execution in this money-centric system we live in.
If the story gets to print, they have already lost. They need to intimidate sources more like we do:
Tailrank - FBI Acknowledges: Journalists' Phone Records are Fair Game
Missed one.
Require journalists to launder reporting done outside China to make the PRC government look good, and revoke the ability to report from inside China for those publishing stories that don't tow the Party line. Nice. Of course, unconfiscable pictures from wireless digital cameras with satellite links are still going to get the story out of this government's oppression and brutality--it just won't have an AP byline anymore.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Would that work? I have no idea, not sure how they monitor traffic. Answers please?
Meta will eat itself
Hm, I thought Afghanistan and Iraq was liberated already by the great Uncle Sam???
Nah... they haven't run out of bullets yet.
Once they stop shooting us. *then* we'll be able to liberate them.
the chinese wouldn't have anything to do with those free speech zones
it's easier to just massacre those pesky protesters
oh... wait you're worried about censorship?
don't worry! the public will never hear about any "massacres"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I disagree. The Internet is a worldwide network of computers; it's unlikely that we'll stop needing to use computers, or stop needing to network them any time soon. It is probable that eventually the protocols and methods of transporting information will change, but the Internet itself is too broad a concept to come to an end due to technological progress in the near future.
One thing China seems to have is a backbone. I may not like their policies, but i have to admire their resolve.
...But then again, think of the children.
Have you read my journal today?
Totalitarian regimes have always benefitted from America and Europe's useful idiots. This site is positively brimming with them.
an ill wind that blows no good
Between this kind of asshattery, manipulating their economy to maximize the amount of foreign money they get to keep, stomping on their citizens (Tiananmen Square, anyone?), outright thievery of foreign products (Redberry? Puh-LEEZ!), lies (that U.S. recon plane was in Chinese airspace - honest!), double-dealings, and everything else, could someone please explain again just why China is in the WTO, and the rest of the world 'needs' to do business with them?
I say screw 'em - they want to play by their own rules and the hell with everyone else, then let 'em play by themselves: don't buy Chinese anything!
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
I disagree. You'd be better comparing the internet to the radio space that ham uses. It's a new "ether" for communications where IM, WWW and email sit on top of it. Ham got replaced by cellphones using similar technology. We may be using something like Tor in the future to route over governmental control, but it's still going to be the internet.
What's interesting is the net is already three or four steps ahead of the government. Tor and FreeNet already exist, the techology is there, we just don't need it yet in the west. They simply cannot take on the bazzar coding model and expect to win, there's too many of us. The media industry is slowly waking to this fact and they sell music. Imagine how many people would work together on something as important as government censure?
The next 10 years are going to be really interesting.
Do what we always do? Subvert the democracy, assassinate key members, fund alternate parties, spy on undesirables and pass the info to our friends. We could arm the revolutionaries, giving them all the guns, ammo and cash the CIA can muster. We can fake stories about leaders, kidnap them. We could fake terrorist attrocities to justfy our attack.
All of these things except the last have been done by the west. The last was planned for Cuba but Kennedy veto'ed it. I could name a dozen nations where this is documented as happening, but I'll shorten it down to South America and the Middle East.
We only respect democracy when it goes in our favour. If the candidate stands up for his people or attempts to nationize the national resources we covet, then that's when the trouble begins. We destroyed more democracies than we've created.
Wasn't the Internet originally built to have a secure and flexible communications system in the event of a nuclear war? Somehow, I think it will withstand Chinese censors (and the RIAA/MPAA too, for that matter!)
on the whims of one person elected by 20 millions ?
Woah cowboy, the Iran PR campaign isn't finished yet. We need to justify then carry out that conflict. One thing at a time buddy!
China, North Korea, Cuba, and the old Soviet Union have all got the same problem, a paranoid fear of their people hearing anything that might actually be true. Everything must pass through the party filters first. It's ths same thing that every Communist Govt. has always feared, truth. Truth exposes all the failings of the system, in the West we read about failures of our Govt. dailey and sometimes even do something to fix the system at the ballot box, not often enough but at least we have the option.
In the U. S. this is an election year so fix the problem, vote against ALL incumbants! They are all on the take anyway, give someone else a chance!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I mean at least the Chinese are mostly killing their own citizens. What is it now? 3,400 Iraqi's a month? All for the oil rights.
Deleted
Is it really such a bad thing if the Chinese government tries to block big-media news? International communication on an interpersonal level is so easy now that I doubt the Chinese people will really be left in the dark... even if their government forces them to pretend that they are.
Didn't you mother teach you that two wrongs do not make a right? I'm against censorship when it is comitted anywhere in the world. If China censors the internet then I am against it. If the USA censors the internet then I am against it.
That's my moral compass, dude. What's yours?
You have a point, but the American Civil War largely doesn't mesh with it. Keep in mind the whole slavery thing wasn't an issue in the American Civil War until the Emancipation Proclamation (years into the war), and even then it was not so much as intrinsic concern over the basic human rights of slaves, but a political tool that both tinted the conflict in the world view (and obviously in the historical view), very much against the Confederacy. It also was a declaration that any states that chose to attempt to secede and fail would have their slavery abolished (to keep border states considering seceding from doing so). Note the phrasing of the proclamation was that slavery was abolished in all states 'in open rebellion', and didn't ban it anywhere else. If it were about human rights, it wouldn't have carried that condition. Ultimately the move was probably the biggest single step toward abolishing slavery, but if not for the immediate need for a political tool brought on by the war, the step would have come much later. So ultimately the South seceding caused slavery to be abolished sooner than it would have.
The american civil war is a much more complex situation than redneck southerners fighting to continue slavery, as a lot of people are taught/figure. If it had been, it would be a much more simpler thing to declare the Northern states as being in the right at the time, but it's not that clear cut (particularly in the first couple of years of th ewar).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The Chinese people are not stupid. They already know that the government controls the information they get through local sources whether they be Chinese or foreign. So these latest measures are not really going to have much effect since people who want it are already getting information from sources beyond the government's control using a variety of devices. Instead, I would say that the latest information crackdown is aimed at saving some political figure's butt (or indeed their life) due to the embarassment of some of the bad news that has come out over the last year.
There have been a number of stories that have leaked out over the last months about unrest and even uprisings in various parts of China. These disruptions have at their root economic disparities, environmental disasters, and political corruption. There are places where the government is losing control, ironically because they've failed to listen to and act on legitimate complaints of citizens. The news of these things has probably caused the loss of a lot of face within the government. So now some kind of tough looking action is needed to save someone's neck.
As far as access to unfiltered information is concerned, the genie is already out of the bottle. Any real efforts to put it back, like banning SMS on cell phones altogether, or pulling the plug on all internet access, would probably push people over the edge and start a real revolution. The revolution wouldn't start because of some abstract love of freedom, but simply because a lot of Chinese people have come to depend on these things for their livelihood and they are a part of what makes them happy. Just imagine what would happen if Chinese World of Warcraft players (mostly young and male) suddenly had it taken away from them. The government doesn't want that kind of trouble.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
You've never lived in a country filled with secret police before, have you?
So long as my stocks keep going up and I can buy my cheap stuff at Wallmart what do we care if the Chineese have cencered news.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
This is a modern-day equivalent of book-burning, of which the chinese are one of the earliest examples.
Following the advice of Li Si, Qin Shi Huang ordered all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin--except copies in the imperial library for official uses--to be burned 213 BC. This is accompanied by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals, who did not comply with the state dogma (To burn the classics and to bury the scholars). (Plagiarised from wikipedia).
All through history you can always immediately tell the most evil governing bodies as they are all afraid of truth and tried to limit free speech. All the most self-serving power groups with the worst human rights records through history have tried and ultimately failed to kill free speech. Interestingly, that group also includes the Nazis and the christian and islamic churches.
It should tell us something. As should all the desperate and frustrated people who keep blowing themselves up. We just don't seem to ever get it though.
A little dig through the history books, followed by current and past events, while thinking about things from their perspective does help. The 1949 UN Partition Plan (divide the land up so 53% of it makes a state where the 33% of the population that had just finished arriving in the last couple of years makes a 5% majority) and the 1950 Absentee Property Law (seize 70-88% of the land with no form of reimbursement whatsoever from those who happen to not be physically present on their land immediately following a major war) is a good place to start.
Really, do what was done in Palestine anywhere in the world and you are going to run into violence on the part of the local populace. Hell, even if everything is done legit, changing the demographics of any area by suddenly injecting a very visible 33% minority (consisting of hundreds of thousands of people) is going to cause problems. The presence of several radicals, who believe that it is their destiny to control the whole area because a hundred generations ago or so their ancestors live there for seventy-five generations or so (after they slaughtered off all the original inhabitants) doesn't help.
A few cycles of violent reaction back and forth, and pesto, you will have what you've got today: a people who's land and livelyhood has been taken from them because of a genocide that occurred many many miles away in Europe that they had nothing to do with. Ironically, they are really the ones today that are paying the brunt of the remaining price of the holocaust. However, the majority of the western world doesn't see it because they can't get past the fact that a percentage of their population has reacted, and continues to react, badly to their desperate situation.
So, how has it come that they elect the leaders they do? I wonder. Meanwhile, the continued build up of settlements, annexation of land and fresh water supplies, the pretty much steady 1:8 kill ratio around any violence (not in their favor), the destruction of local economy, the lockdowns, the curfews, the demolition of homes and historical sights, and so on continues, while Fox News dutifully dolls out the reports the horror of the latest suicide bombing.
It's got to be amazingly frustrating being a Palestinian. Life just keeps kicking you when you're down (and its all your fault).
It's about money. According to most of the analysts I've heard, this is being done to tap into the revenue stream the Reuters and Bloomberg get from selling financial data. The need for censorship is being used as a pretext.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
This apparently only affects news from foreign agencies going into China, but how long before the Chinese government starts demanding that foreign agencies change their news in general to suit Chinese interests? Don't think anyone would go along with this? Oh really? How about Yahoo! and Google in China? When the ventures and partnerships of Western corporations are used as leverage, don't think they won't start disclosing information or changing their content outside of China as well.
Don't you think this is becoming a matter of national security for Western governments such that they should not allow their domestic media organizations and corporations to engage in ventures and partnerships in China until China adopts democratic policies as it's currently giving China de facto leverage over them, both within and without China, on the basis of their interests in China?
No I don't think people are only selfish *now* and I most certalinly don't have a rosy view of the past but then you would have realized if that if you read my post all the way to the end. To quote my self:
Did that clear things up for you?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
How about we all just go ahead and assume, on any given day, that China is continuing to censor the media as usual. Then you can let us know when they don't, and that will be news for a change.
Yes, all that oil...
Guess Canada must be next then.
Of course. It seems states cannot leave the USA without being attacked. When states wanted to leave the former USSR they were free to go (although that was probably more because the USSR was very weak already, I doubt very much Stalin would have let them go as well).
The Civil War did not start until the Confederate States attacked Fort Sumpter. The act of seceding did not start the US Civil War, the battle at Fort Sumpter did. Oh, and Fort Sumpter was a fort in a Confederate State being help by Union soldiers. So even then you can debate it's merits. Either way, secesion did not start the war, Sumpter did.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Canada is compliant. Venezuela will precede Canada. Oh, look they're having political problems...
Deleted
...weather information as to secret ops concerned with atmospheric aerosols testing. They leave the weather guys (who know it is going on but like their jobs, same as the ATAC guys) stumbling with stuff like "gee, we really missed that one, wonder why it didn't rain/rain so much" etc all the time when the actual weather contradicts the forecast to a huge degree. Our computational modelling and forecast skills have greatly improved in just the past decade, but frequently they get borked because they can't get the actual mass aerosol testing data in advance for their modelling, because it is a state secret. They run weather modification tests and communications "tunnelling" "stealth effect enhancing" tests all the time using various aerosols.
Greg Palast is now facing federal criminal charges for doing a story on Katrina evacuees in a camp near an Exxon refinery.
There are numerous other examples of reporters (in the west) either getting jail time or being threatened with it for various coverage. It goes way back in US hisotry. In the civil war and the first world war a lot of newspapers were closed and editors were jailed or threatened with jailing. Lincon imprisoned a lot, we had the "alien and sedition act" thing as well.
China's government is much more evil that Sony or HP.
It's practically impossible to avoid Chinese goods entirely. But look at the labels before you purchase. When I recently bought a pair of pliers, I purposefully bought a more expensive pair made in Thailand rather than automatically going with the cheapest and sending my $$ to Beijing.
The Chinese government, and by extension the Chinese establishment and industry are anathema.
And then the "next big thing" will come along, and the Internet will be no more interesting than a ham radio today.
My god! You mean we can listen to music on meat?!? Next you'll tell me that I can install linux on a dead badger.
Good point, and my personal experience on several occasions backs up that saying as well. However, I have to think that when one's *primary* purpose is to write propoganda, and furthermore one does so in an environment where competing information sources are restrained, accuracy is bound to be *unusually* poor. If a presumption of inaccuracy in news stories has some validity in free countries where fact-checking is easy and embarassing mistakes are public matters, how much truer is it likely to be in a climate where those pressures are removed?
On another less on-topic point, I've never seen an individual news agency become a ubiquitous punchline or "bad example" like Fox News has, and it's starting to puzzle me. Ok, they employ Geraldo, O'Reilly, and they use New York Post / Enquirer style marketing and graphics, and those are pretty inviting targets for ridicule. But that notwithstanding, the frequency of "Fox News" mentions in this kind of context far surpasses any similar references to a news agency that I've ever seen before, and that's including Enquirer and Weekly World News jokes. Until now, I've never seen such a meme, where some news outlet becomes a default metaphor for "inaccuracy" or "bias." So what's behind this? Rivera's and O'Reilly's are punditry & special interest programs (i.e., not regular news programming per se), and the only attempt I've seen to do a methodologically sound and peer-reviewed study of news bias showed theirs to be marginally closer to center than the average outlet (among major newspapers and major news networks). Anyway, I don't mean to gripe or dangle flamebait out there; just curious if there's any comprehensive, non-anecdotal data behind this perception - i.e., is there some aggregate study or rigorous investigation that shows Fox News to be less accurate than its competitors? Or, even if their bias and accuracy are roughly comparable (quantitatively) to those of its competitors, could it be that the direction of the bias goes against popular sentiment, so popular sentiment will in turn tend to view the organization uncharitably?
Pi Ran Out
Do you light a candle or curse the darkness?
In times of trouble, the smell of frying onions usually gives confidence and comfort.
let me refresh your memory all you China bashers:
Pentagon Moves Toward Monitoring Media
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. command in Baghdad is seeking bidders for a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for monitoring the tone of Iraq news stories filed by U.S. and foreign media.
Proposals, due Sept. 6, ask companies to show how they'll "provide continuous monitoring and near-real time reporting of Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. media," according to the solicitation issued last week.
Contractors also will be evaluated on how they will provide analytical reports and customized briefings to the military, "including, but not limited to tone (positive, neutral, negative) and scope of media coverage."
The winner of the contract will likely also be required to develop an Arabic version of the multinational force's web site.
Attempts by The Associated Press to contact officials connected to the project via telephone and e-mail were not successful Thursday night.
The program comes during what has appeared to be a White House effort, before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, to take the offensive against critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq.
President Bush addressed the American Legion's national convention in Salt Lake City on the issue Thursday, stressing that a U.S. pullout from iraq would lead to its conquest by America's worst enemies.
He continued a theme set by both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when they spoke to the administration-friendly group earlier in the week.
The military last year was criticized for a public relations program in Iraq that included hiring a consulting firm that paid Iraqi news media to carry news stories written by American troops.
Pentagon officials have defended the program as a necessary tool in the war on terror. But critics have said it contradicts American values of freedom of the press.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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This was BIG news on 9-01-2006.
NOBODY seem sot remeber it anymore, but when China announces they will contrrol news agencies everyone begins to jump up and down bashing them.
YOU ARE ALL hypocrats. Look at your OWN countries BEFORE looking at what China is doing.
You can debate the 'ethics' of this, however China is a sovereign country, and has the right to do just about whatever it likes within its borders, because it can back up its independence through force of arms and international trade.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Well then, the proper thing to do is for all our news agencies to violate all of their "rules" simultaneously.
Ad Astra Per Asper
We can just flood the Chinese market with cheap videocameras and satellite uplinks. All we need is somewhere that can produce huge amounts of cheap electronics - oh.
The documentary Outfoxed ought to answer a lot of your questions. You don't really need to analyse reporting content when you get it from the horses mouth in the form of whistleblowers and leaked memos. The reporters are told daily what phrases to use for particular incidents and how to report them.
The reason for their prominence as a laughing stock might be to do with their "Fair and Balanced" tag line. They are clearly anything but. As Stephen Colbert said to the whitehouse press corespondents dinner; "Fox News gives you both sides of the story. The Presidents side and the Vice-Presidents side".
No... but I talk with them every day. How 'bout you?