Vietnam mobs burn factories in anti-China protest

burned factory

Mobs burned and looted scores of foreign-owned factories.

This is an interesting turn. The one thing that the Chinese government cares about is their image, the China brand. They are super sensitive to criticism and push back, but how can you push back against spontaneous riots in other countries? And this outbreak had a double blow. The rioters attacked Taiwanese factories by mistake. This will tip the Taiwanese against unification with China, which China craves. In the past, the Chinese have rioted against Japanese products, and the Chinese government has used it to their political advantage. Now the situation is reversed. Will the riots spread to more cities and Asian countries? Will China back down to save it’s commercial reputation and foreign investments and markets?

 

 

Continue reading… “Vietnam mobs burn factories in anti-China protest”

0

The SOPA blackout: Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Google, and many others protest proposed law

wiki-pedia-blackout-rm-verge-1_large_verge_medium_landscape

Two new laws proposed by US legislators, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, have been attracting a very negative reaction from the web community over the past couple of months, which is today culminating in a day of protests. Aiming to curtail copyright infringement on the web by giving the US government unprecedented new powers, both SOPA and PIPA have been rejected as overreaching and unhelpful laws that cannot coexist with a free and open internet.

A lot of websites (most notably Wikipedia) are going dark today in protest of SOPA.

But the humor site The Oatmeal easily wins for its hilarious GIF about the proposed law. In its own way, it does a better job of explaining what SOPA means than a lot of the serious sites out there.

Here it is after the jump. Watch and laugh…

Continue reading… “The SOPA blackout: Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Google, and many others protest proposed law”

0

India Tightens Tourism Rules – Britain and US Protest

india temple 2423
New Rules for Travel in India
Britain and the US have lodged a diplomatic protest with India after the government in Delhi introduced rules barring tourists from returning to the country within two months of any visit.

The new visa rules, which also apply to other foreign nationals, are apparently a reaction to the arrest in the US of a Mumbai terror suspect, David Coleman Headley, who had entered India on a multiple-entry visa.

The British high commission in Delhi has urged the Indian government to rethink the policy, which is expected to hit tourists planning to use India as a base for touring the region…

0

China’s ‘Netizens’ Hold Authorities To A New Measure Of Public Accountability

netizen

Sun Zhongjie, 19, chopped off his own finger as a protest against police entrapment

A severed finger sparked an online uproar that went viral. And very quickly, rattled authorities here took note.  The story of Sun Zhongjie, a 19-year-old driver who chopped off his finger to decry police entrapment, shows how the Internet has become an effective tool of public protest in this tightly controlled country.

0

Mexico on the Brink of Chaos

Mexico’s On The Brink Of Chaos

 A frightening number of drug-related deaths in Mexico

Raymond Alvarez: The quickly rising numbers graphically displayed on a Los Angeles Times web page are telling. Mexico’s drug war story is darkened by numbers, staggering numbers. There were 7,337 drug-related deaths in 2008, the Times reports. The death toll from terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year approaches the average weekly body count in Juarez, which is just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Continue reading… “Mexico on the Brink of Chaos”

0

Tree-Sitters Plucked From Their Perch By Officials

Tree-Sitters Plucked From Their Perch By Officials 

After almost two years perched in the sky, Berkeley’s tree-sitters came back to earth Tuesday. The final four were handcuffed and escorted by police down steep steps of scaffolding for a safe-and-certain descent cheered by hundreds of bystanders, who anxiously gathered in fear of a conflict at the top of a 100-foot redwood.

Continue reading… “Tree-Sitters Plucked From Their Perch By Officials”

0

Global Food Crisis – The Fury of the Poor

Global Food Crisis - The Fury of the Poor

 Pakistani women buy subsidized flour in Lahore. The price of staple foods
and fuel has risen drastically in the country in the last few months.

Around the world, rising food prices have made basic staples like rice and corn unaffordable for many people, pushing the poor to the barricades because they can no longer get enough to eat. But the worst is yet to come.

 

Continue reading… “Global Food Crisis – The Fury of the Poor”

0