CHINA NOW

China's economic invasion of Africa
A million Chinese people, from engineers to chefs, have moved to work in Africa in the past decade. How has the trade boom changed their lives?
In December 1999, a 24-year-old Chinese man called Zhang Hao left behind the freezing winter of his native Shenyang city to fly to Uganda. Zhang was nervous. He spoke no English. The journey was not even his idea, but that of his father, who had worked in Uganda a few years before on a fishing project involving the Chinese government.

"If you want to start something – and be the boss – Africa is the place to do it," Zhang's father had told him when he asked for business advice.

Zhang had quit university to travel to east Africa, but he did not need a degree to spot easy money-making opportunities as soon as he set foot in Kampala: goods that were available cheaply in every city in China were either expensive here, or unavailable. He started by importing shoes. Then schoolbags. Then fishing nets, nails and bicycles.

"I imported everything. At that time they needed everything!" recalls Zhang, an affable man with rimless glasses.

His business grew quickly; he made money and local friends. But after a few years he grew weary of the long buying trips to China. So he and his wife bought a large plot of land in Kampala. On it they constructed a spectacular Chinese-Korean restaurant, with private dining areas, karaoke rooms and a giant 500-seat dining hall. To the side of the restaurant they built a bedroom, which became their home. The business prospered, and soon he started additional enterprises including a bakery, a firm selling flat-screen televisions and a security company.

"Chinese don't think, they just try without studying the market too much. Otherwise, the chance is gone," he says.

At the site of each new enterprise, Zhang built a room for his family – he had a son in 2007 – to sleep in. They literally live at work.

It has paid off. Zhang says he is now the biggest Chinese employer in the country, with 1,200 local staff. He has even been offered a Ugandan passport, but has refused, just as he has declined to take an English first name.

"I am Chinese, and we need to build a Chinese name here – to let people know that our country is not like before. We are richer, catching up the world."

read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/06/chinas-economic-invasion-of-africa?intcmp=239

My friend has visited Namibia on numerous occasions. She's told me that practically all work force above 20 years of age are Chinese since local people are dying of AIDS. China is also exploiting Africa's natural resources to the maximum. They have cut down most of the forests in Congo where Robert Mugabe has been a dictator for years now.

China to build a new $1.2 billion airport in Sudan
New airport to increase Sudan’s internalization

BEIJING (AP)

A Chinese company has won a $1.21 billion (900 million euro) contract to build a new international airport in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, underscoring the close links between China and sanctions-hit Sudan.

A subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company will build a runway long enough to handle giant Airbus A380s, a passenger terminal, hanger, control tower and other facilities, China's state-owned companies administrator said in a statement on its website (www.sasac.gov.cn) on Tuesday.

"After this project is completed, it will greatly enhance the degree of internationalization of Sudan's capital Khartoum, and also increase the impact China Communications Construction Company will have in Sudan's market," the statement said.

The company has a Hong Kong-listed unit , and is involved in infrastructure projects around the world. In January it was given an $810 million contract to build the second phase of a new port in Sri Lanka.

The deal with Sudan comes at a time when airlines are considering cutting back operations because of currency restrictions that prevent them repatriating their profits.

The airlines are constrained because of local laws that prevent selling tickets to Sudanese nationals in foreign currency. Credit card transactions are also not possible due to U.S. sanctions imposed since 1997.

Only about a dozen foreign airlines fly to Sudan because of the U.S. embargo.

Sudan also has a poor safety record, with the European Union banning all Sudanese airlines from flying to the bloc.

But Beijing has long been an ally of the government in Khartoum, providing much needed infrastructure development for the country that conceded to a January referendum outcome which will see its oil-rich south split as soon as July 9.

China relied on Sudan as its sixth largest source of oil imports in 2010, and has been keen to build a relationship with leaders in the south.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/15/137720.html

National Inflation Association
Obama Misinforming Public About U.S. Dollar and Yuan

President Obama's comments on Wednesday in a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, misinformed the public about potential changes in foreign exchange rates and their effects on U.S. citizens. Obama on Wednesday said that he would like to see the Chinese yuan appreciate faster in value. While Hu indicated that China is committed to allowing the free market to better dictate the value of the yuan, Obama said China is implementing their steps to allow the yuan to appreciate "not as fast as we'd like."

For years, the U.S. has been criticizing China by calling them "currency manipulators". The fact is, the Federal Reserve is the real currency manipulator because their actions will soon lead to a U.S. Hyperinflationary Great Depression that destroys the lives of all Americans who aren't prepared for life with a worthless U.S. dollar. All China is doing is pegging the yuan to the U.S. dollar so that their product manufacturers and exporters can maintain some level of stability. However, the U.S. is using this as an excuse to explain its rapidly deteriorating export market.

Obama was correct when he explained to the world how China would benefit by having a stronger yuan. Obama understands perfectly how a stronger yuan would bring down prices for Chinese citizens and allow them to enjoy a much higher standard of living. In fact, NIA believes China could solve their current inflation crisis simply by allowing the yuan to appreciate alone.

China has seen the prices of many food items soar by 25% or more in recent months, which is horrific for a country where many of its citizens spend half of their income on food. While most mainstream economists on CNBC, Bloomberg, and FOX Business are quick to blame China's food inflation crisis on the weather, NIA believes the weather has very little to do with it. It seems like the weather is always the excuse every time food prices rise. Mainstream economists would have you believe that the world has been experiencing never-ending droughts and floods that continue to worsen each year.

NIA members know better than that. After all, we have the most educated membership base in the world. The truth is, China's food inflation crisis is coming as a direct result of the Federal Reserve's destructive quantitative easing and money printing policies, and China's willingness to keep the U.S. dollar artificially propped up out of fear that Americans will no longer be able to afford their exports. China is importing all of its food inflation from the U.S. and if President Obama gets his way, China will throw its food inflation right back into the faces of all U.S. citizens.

Imagine a food fight in school between American and Chinese kids with the American kids throwing their free National School Lunch Program (NSLP) meals (paid for by Chinese purchases of U.S. treasuries) at the Chinese kids while the Chinese kids sit there ignoring it trying to enjoy their own meals that they spent half of their income to buy. All the while, the American kids are antagonizing the Chinese kids, calling them currency manipulators and blaming their need for free NSLP lunches on China's currency peg (when the peg is actually preventing the American kids from starving). Sooner or later, not only will the Chinese kids throw the NSLP lunch remains back at the Americans, but they might become so disgusted (because they paid for the food being thrown at them) that they actually regurgitate their meals that they worked half of the day to be able to consume, into the American kids' faces.

If the Federal Reserve continues down the path it is currently on, not only will China allow the yuan to rise to a free market determined level, which will send China's food inflation crisis back to the U.S., but China is likely to dump their U.S. treasury holdings that they are currently hoarding. China's foreign exchange reserves rose by $199 billion last quarter (its largest quarterly gain in 15 years and 78% higher than analyst estimates of $112 billion) to a record $2.85 trillion for total growth in 2010 of 18.7%. Most likely, about 2/3 of these reserves are in U.S. dollars. Americans have been deceived by the U.S. government and the mainstream media into believing the U.S. economy is recovering, because the U.S. has been enjoying the benefits of inflation without the consequences of rising prices. When the U.S. bond bubble begins to burst and these trillions of dollars being hoarded come home to roost, inflation will become the primary concern of all Americans.

NIA finds it completely outrageous how Obama can be so honest with Chinese citizens about their benefits of having a stronger yuan, but then seconds later outright lies to the American public by saying that Americans would gain by having a stronger yuan as well. A stronger yuan by definition would mean a weaker U.S. dollar. It is insane for Obama to proclaim that having a stronger currency is good for China but bad for America. The rules of economics are the same in both countries.

As the Chinese see their purchasing power increase by having a stronger yuan, Americans will see their purchasing power decrease by having a weaker dollar. These simple economic principles are easy for any human being to understand, but nobody in the mainstream media is calling Obama out on it. The media completely accepts Obama's statements as the truth, without providing any warning to American citizens that Obama's desired change in foreign exchange rates will shift China's inflation crisis completely to the U.S.

On November 12th, NIA's President Gerard Adams warned Americans on FOX Business to beware of massive food inflation in early 2011. We are less than three weeks into the new year and massive food inflation is already here. SuperValu, the third-largest U.S. food retailer with 2,349 stores that operate under such names as Acme, Albertsons, Save-A-Lot, just reported that all of their major vendors have announced their intentions to pass along rising costs throughout the calendar year and the company will be raising prices on all food items by 3% to 14%. NIA's experience tells us that SuperValu is planning to increase prices on most goods by approximately 14%. Trust us, if SuperValu was expecting to increase prices by an average of only around 5%, they would have given an average instead of such a wide range. (By the way, SuperValu's stock crashed 16% on the news and one of NIA's top 10 predictions for 2011 was that U.S. retail stocks will decline after reporting lower profit margins.)

The SuperValu situation confirms that double-digit U.S. food price inflation is just about guaranteed to occur in 2011. We also expect to see double-digit price inflation this year in clothing, oil, gasoline, natural gas, and all of the most important things Americans need to live and survive. If the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) somehow manages to report a CPI increase in 2011 of anything less than 5%, and the mainstream media continues to report the BLS's CPI numbers as the truth, any Americans who continue to listen to the mainstream media deserve to lose all of their purchasing power during hyperinflation.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us/

Sources close to the CSIS -- Canada's CIA equivalent -- say that the attack was part of operation GhostNet, the Chinese campaign that also penetrated U.S. and Indian government servers. (Source: CSIS)
Government of Canada refuses to report how much information may have been lost.
Its a well known fact that hackers based out of China have been probing and attacking servers of the U.S. government and its contractors. Often these attacks have been mildly successful in stealing quantities of information. Now U.S. neighbor Canada appears to have become the latest victim of Chinese cyber-aggression.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper released a short statement on Thursday confirming that the government had encountered an "attempt to access" government information by foreign agents. The government would not confirm where that attempt came from or what information may have been stolen.

But sources have told Canada's leading news network, CBC, that the attacks were traced to servers in China [report]. They add that the attack took at least two major government departmental sites offline and gained highly confidential classified information off government servers.

According to sources, the servers penetrated belonged to Canada's Finance Department and Treasury Board. Those sources said the attackers stole key passwords (sounds like a phishing scheme) to gain access to the machine. The sources say that the government is unsure whether servers containing Canadian citizens' tax and health records were compromised.

The attackers used a technique dubbed "executive spear-phishing". Using that method they seized control of Canadian government officials’ individual machines via typical infection modes. Once they had access, they began to send emails from the officials' computers, asking for passwords to various servers. As the emails originated from a legitimate source, many government officials gave up these passwords. States one source about the method, "There is nothing particularly innovative about it. It's just that it is dreadfully effective."

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a security analyst and former officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (Canada's equivalent of the CIA) went on the record to say that "all indications point at China" as the origin of the attacks. He believes that the attack was orchestrated by China's semi-independent "patriotic-hackers" and was driven by China's view that Canada is "a land of opportunity to get natural resources that they need so, so much."

Despite being forced to shut down hundreds of servers in January after the leak was detected, Canada did its best to keep the incident quiet. Meanwhile Canada's Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE), a little known branch of the Canadian military rushed to try to diagnose the extent of the attack and regain control.

The attacks are thought to be part of the broader GhostNet operation in China. It is unknown exactly to what extent the hackers are cooperating with or endorsed by the Chinese government. But it seems highly likely that they are receiving at least some support from the leadership of China, given that they remain in operation.

The attacks may be largely financially motivated. While it is tempting to think that China's cyber-assault is a prelude to some sort of military activity, more likely the highly profit-driven nation is merely stealing valuable financial information with which to drive its GDP even higher. The initially targeted Canadian government departments are evidence of this.

The uneasy question of how to deal with the superpower's cyber-aggression is one that the international community has not yet find a good countering solution.
http://www.dailytech.com/China+Appears+to+Have+Committed+Unprecedented+CyberAttack+on+Canada/article20933.htm

China will raise the level of subsidies for citizens on the country's two health insurance programmes – an existing one for urban workers and a separate rural co-operative medical insurance scheme – to 200 yuan (£19) per person, from 120 yuan (£11) now, the State Council said.

China wants to "ensure basic medical insurance coverage for both urban and rural residents and significantly increase the level of protection", the statement said.

Beijing aims to complete landmark health care reforms by 2020 to ensure safe and affordable medical coverage for more than one billion Chinese, and plans to spend 850 billion yuan (£79 billion) on the initial stage to 2011.
With some hospitals charging exorbitantly for medical care and often demanding cash up front before providing treatment, basic medical care is currently beyond the reach of many ordinary Chinese, especially for the nation's migrant workers.

The government hopes that by widening the safety net of the rural poor, it can give its people confidence to spend more freely on consumer goods and services, boosting the domestic economy and reducing its reliance on exporting cheap goods to the West.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8330202/China-to-substantially-expand-medical-coverage.html

China tries to stamp out 'Jasmine Revolution'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110220/ap_on_re_as/as_china_jasmine_revolution;_ylt=Atx4KKlOe6PjVmJpcNHSSeBn.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTJ1NnB2bzI5BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMjIwL2FzX2NoaW5hX2phc21pbmVfcmV2b2x1dGlvbgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNjaGluYXRyaWVzdG8-

BEIJING – Jittery Chinese authorities wary of any domestic dissent staged a concerted show of force Sunday to squelch a mysterious online call for a "Jasmine Revolution" apparently modeled after pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping the Middle East.
Authorities detained activists, increased the number of police on the streets, disconnected some mobile phone text messaging services and censored Internet postings about the call to stage protests at 2 p.m. in Beijing, Shanghai and 11 other major cities.
The campaign did not gain much traction among ordinary citizens and the chances of overthrowing the Communist government are slim, considering Beijing's tight controls over the media and Internet. A student-led, pro-democracy movement in 1989 was crushed by the military and hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.

On Sunday, police took at least three people away in Beijing, one of whom tried to lay down white jasmine flowers while hundreds of people milled about the protest gathering spot, outside a McDonald's on the capital's busiest shopping street. In Shanghai, police led away three people near the planned protest spot after they scuffled in an apparent bid to grab the attention of passers-by.
Many activists said they didn't know who was behind the campaign and weren't sure what to make of the call to protest, which first circulated Saturday on the U.S.-based, Chinese-language news website Boxun.com.
The unsigned notice called for a "Jasmine revolution" — the name given to the Tunisian protest movement — and urged people "to take responsibility for the future." Participants were urged to shout, "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness" — a slogan that highlights common complaints among Chinese.

The call is likely to fuel anxiety among China's authoritarian government, which is ever alert for domestic discontent and has appeared unnerved by recent protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Libya. It has limited media reports about them, stressing the instability caused by the protests, and restricted Internet searches to keep Chinese uninformed about Middle Easterners' grievances against their autocratic rulers.
On Saturday in a speech to national and provincial officials, President Hu Jintao ordered them to "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society."

China's extensive filtering and monitoring of the Internet meant that most Chinese were unlikely to know about Saturday's call to protest. Boxun.com, for example, is blocked as are Twitter and Facebook, which were instrumental in Egypt's protest movement. Still, young tech-smart Chinese are savvy about getting around controls.

One person sitting in the McDonald's after the brief protest in Beijing said he saw Sunday's gathering as a dry run.
"Lots of people in here are Twitter users and came to watch like me," said 42-year-old Hu Di. "Actually this didn't have much organization, but it's a chance to meet each other. It's like preparing for the future."
With foot traffic always heavy at the Wangfujing pedestrian mall, it was difficult to discern who showed up to protest, who came to watch and who was out shopping. Rubberneckers outnumbered any potential protesters. Many wondered if there was a celebrity in the area because of the heavy police presence and dozens of foreign reporters and news cameras.
As the crowd swelled back and forth and police urged people to move on, 25-year-old Liu Xiaobai placed a white jasmine flower on a planter in front of the McDonald's and took some photos with his cell phone.
"I'm quite scared because they took away my phone. I just put down some white flowers, what's wrong with that?" Liu said afterward. "I'm just a normal citizen and I just want peace."

Security agents tried to take away Liu, but he was swarmed by journalists and eventually was seen walking away with a friend.
Two other people were taken away by police, including a shabbily dressed old man who was cursing and shouting, though it wasn't clear if he was there because of the online call to protest.
In Shanghai, three young men were taken away from outside a Starbucks coffee shop in People's Square by police, who refused to answer reporters' questions about why they were detained. They trio had been shouting complaints about the government and that food prices are too high.
A couple dozen older people were drawn to the commotion and started voicing their own complaints and saying they wanted democracy and the right to vote. One woman jumped up on a roadside cement block to shout, "The government are all hooligans," then ran off, only to return a bit later and shout again at the police and others crowded in the area before once again scampering away.
Security officials were relaxed toward the retirees and the crowd eventually drifted away.

There were no reports of protests in other cities where people were urged to gather, such as Guangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan and Chengdu.
Ahead of the planned protests, human rights groups estimated that anywhere from several dozen to more than 100 activists in cities across China were detained by police, confined to their homes or were missing. Families and friends reported the detention or harassment of several dissidents, and some activists said they were warned not to participate.
On Sunday, searches for "jasmine" were blocked on China's largest Twitter-like microblog, and status updates with the word on popular Chinese social networking site Renren.com were met with an error message and a warning to refrain from postings with "political, sensitive ... or other inappropriate content."

A mass text messaging service from China Mobile was unavailable in Beijing on Sunday due to an upgrade, according to a customer service operator for the leading service provider, who did not know how long the suspension would last. In the past, Chinese authorities have suspended text messaging in politically tense areas to prevent organizing.
Boxun.com said its website was attacked by hackers Saturday after it posted the call to protest. A temporary site, on which users were reporting heavy police presence in several cities, was up and running Sunday. The site said in a statement it had no way of verifying the origins of the campaign.

Love Always
mudra

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/23/138870.html

An online campaign has urged people in 13 Chinese cities to rally every Sunday to press for government transparency and free expression, following a call last week for Middle East-style protests.

The new call, posted this week on a blog run by overseas-based human rights website Boxun.com, appeared to be from the same group behind a mysterious web campaign for protests last Sunday that echoed those rocking the Arab world.

The earlier call sparked a heavy police turnout at designated protest sites in Beijing and other cities. The events appeared lightly attended, however, and free of major incidents.

ATHENS, Greece – Thousands of evacuees from strife-torn Libya reached ports across the Mediterranean on Saturday, with thousands more still scrambling to flee the North African nation by sea, air or land.
More than 2,800 Chinese workers landed in Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete aboard a Greek ship Saturday. Further to the west, another 2,200 Chinese arrived in Valletta, the capital of Malta, on a ship from the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi. Hours earlier, in the dark of night, a U.S-chartered ferry dropped off over 300 passengers in Valletta after a voyage from Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
The sheer numbers of foreigners leaving Libya as Moammar Gadhafi's regime attacks anti-government protesters has been staggering. As of Saturday, at least 16,000 Chinese workers and 15,000 Turks had been evacuated, most working in the construction and oil industries.
In addition, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council that some 22,000 people have fled across the Libyan border to Tunisia and another 15,000 crossed the border to Egypt.
"There are widespread reports of refugees being harassed and threatened with guns and knives," Ban said, adding that many people who managed to cross the border said their trip was "terrifying."
A State Department spokesman said Saturday that the United States had advised its citizens residing in Libya as early as Feb. 20 to depart and that it had ensured everyone was informed and assisted in leaving the country.
"We are unaware of large pockets of Americans who wished to evacuate but did not. However, we are aware that there may be Americans still in Libya that may need assistance departing the country," said Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley.
"We assisted Americans in departing on Dutch, British, Canadian, Turkish and other government sponsored evacuations," Crowley added.
At the harbor in Valletta, women holding babies and other passengers walked down a ramp to solid land after an eight-hour voyage across the choppy Mediterranean Sea.
"Oh, it was a long ordeal. We are glad it's over," said evacuee Sara Ali, a 30-year-old with dual Libyan-American citizenship. "We're just really tired and really happy to be out and safe."
The passengers had been stuck aboard the catamaran since Wednesday, but strong winds and high seas had prevented the ferry from leaving the Libyan capital Tripoli for three days.
"It was pretty uncomfortable just because of the delay," said Lucile Usielmerazcerna, an evacuee from Santa Cruz, California. "It was really rough waters coming over here, also having to stay in the dock for two or three days."
A group of 2,200 Chinese arrived in Malta's Valletta port on a ship from Benghazi Saturday morning. They are expected to go to the airport and board flights back home, according to Maltese authorities.
A Boeing 737 charter flight with 148 seats — likely the last flight organized by the British government — is due to arrive in Tripoli Saturday afternoon and will return to London later in the day. All Britons remaining in Tripoli have been urged to board the plane.
"The security situation at the airport has been deteriorating in recent hours and the route to the airport is becoming more precarious," the Foreign Office said.
Also Saturday, Britain is chartering a plane from Valletta's airport to bring home a group of Britons.
In Crete, the Chinese government chartered four ferries and 11 hotels, and was having special flights to China later Saturday aboard two Air China jumbo jets.
Two more Greek ships left Benghazi Saturday, one headed for the port of Piraeus with 400 evacuees from 16 countries and another, carrying mostly Chinese nationals, for Heraklion. A third ferry, also carrying mostly Chinese nationals, is still docked in the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi, and huge lines of workers were snaking their way on board. A total of 4,200 people are expected to arrive at Heraklion Sunday, port authorities and shipping agents said.
Travel time between Benghazi and Heraklion is up to 13 hours.
On Thursday, more than 4,000 Chinese workers were evacuated from Crete from Libya. China had at least 30,000 workers in Libya, mostly in the construction and oil industries.
Local media reports in Crete said the Philippines government has also expressed an interest in evacuated 4,500 of its citizens to Crete.
"We cannot find available ships and we are in constant talks with shipping companies. There seems to be no problem with hotels," Alexandros Fasoulakis, the Philippines' honorary consul in Crete, was quoted as saying by the Haniotika Nea paper.
A Turkish navy frigate, the TCG Orucreis, and a navy personnel carrier, the TCG Iskenderun, left Benghazi port early on Saturday, carrying 1,221 Turks and 517 other nationals, including Vietnamese and Bosnians. The ships were expected to reach the Turkish Mediterranean coast on Monday.
Twelve Turkish C-130 and C-160 military transport planes, meanwhile, continued to airlift hundreds more Turks from Tripoli.
A Turkish Airlines plane was transporting about 2 tons of food for the embassy to hand out to Turks still stranded in Libya.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110226/ap_on_re_eu/libya_evacuations;_ylt=AnViX.mMU_S8Wk9iEAcE.3es0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFiMjRnYWMwBHBvcwM1MQRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX3dvcmxkBHNsawMyODAwY2hpbmVzZWU-

Feb.14.2011
End of Buddhism?
The new Chinese law which would come into effect next month banning reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monks in Tibet was aimed at wiping out the Tibetan identity and its rich culture, said exiled Tibetan government based here on Monday.

The new law which stipulates Buddhist monks in Tibet to seek permission from Chinese communist regime for reincarnation has been ironically described by Chinese state administration for religious affairs as an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.

However, the de facto Prime Minister of Tibet Samdhong Rinpoche, speaking to TOI said that the new Chinese law coming into effect next month framed to ban reincarnation of Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Lamas was not surprising and unexpected at all. He said that China had been for a long time engaged in working out various methods and formula to finish the two major Tibetan religious institutions-Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. He said that these two institutions are very important for Tibetans.

He said that the new Chinese law was nothing but a ploy to take control of Tibetan religious institutions. He said that China was perhaps waiting for the departure of the Dalai Lama as it believed that his departure would resolve the problem of Tibet itself.

Rinpoche said that China believes that by choosing its own Dalai Lama as it did in the case of appointing its own Panchen Lama with the new law coming into force would help them to control Tibetans living in various parts of the world including here (Dharamsala) which was not the case at present.

The de facto Prime Minister of Tibet said that it was wishful thinking on the part of Beijing to believe that if the Dalai Lama leaves the scene it would make things easier for it (China) to control the Tibetan struggle and movement for its cause as per its own convenience. He said that the Tibetan issue creates lot of pressure on China at global level, a fact though not accepted by Chinese. He said that Tibetan struggle could not be stymied with one individual (Dalai Lama) not on the scene as it was struggle of a nation.

However, he said that departure of the Dalai Lama would defiantly have a significant bearing on the Tibetan struggle as it could make Tibetans especially youth agitated and could resort to violent means owing to lack of leadership.

About the Karmapa monastery issue, he said that if huge haul of foreign currency including Chinese Yuan had been accumulated illegally must be investigated thoroughly to extract t the truth about it. He said that he believes that Karmapa staff had been responsible for the money found to be kept at monastery in illegal manner. Regarding suspicions being raised about Karmapa being Chinese agent or spy, he said that he (Karmapa) was not so smart and competent to indulge in such sort of activity. When asked that how the Karmapa managed to run away from Tibet (China) in dramatic circumstances in January 2000, Rinpoche said that he (Karmapa) he took advantage of snow while escaping from there.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/New-Chinese-law-aimed-at-wiping-out-Tibetan-identity/articleshow/7495939.cms#ixzz1F9BVaVKP

This is really sad on multiple levels as who would they have to pray for them who knows how to pray effectively and with great spirit and heart. Besides, if the planet is going the way I think it is all of these monks will have moved into another dimension and those who don't want them may end up (reincarnate) in a godless society in a denser 3 D world which is not on this planet.

I think this is the first time in history I hear control policies being extended from bodies to disembodied souls .
About 20 years ago I have written to the Dalai Lama . In his answer he said that this present life was his last incarnation . It is strange that we are several today to say the same thing. After searching infos about his statement I now come across an article where he officially stated it.

On November 27, 2007, while attending an interfaith conference in the north Indian city of Amritsar, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama suggested he might not be reborn, ending a 600-year-old tradition of reincarnation as a small boy after his death.

His Holiness was concerned that the Chinese government plans to seize control of his reincarnation and assign the 15th Dalai Lama by breaking with the traditional selection process.


http://www.frogenyozurt.com/2010/09/the-panchen-lama-controversy-the-last-dalai-lama/

Love Always
mudra

Very good points Carol. I agree people will miss this peacefull religion and religion towards awakeing souls. And I love your question Mudra, hahaha "I think this is the first time in history I hear control policies being extended from bodies to disembodied souls" . All is getting messed up. I personally was surprised to read the news as I read in Vedic books that Buddhism will last 2500 years.

http://www.themistsofavalon.net/t216-vedic-scripts-wisdom-and-facts

well... "All things should pass" - by G.Harrison

this movie brings great insights into the new emerging Chinese cultural system...and the price and tolls placed upon them for their world economic success...?


"Back in the 1980s, the culture critic Marshall Berman wrote a brilliant book called All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. He argued that the great drama of modernity is the way that people go from being passive objects of modernization — mere tools of history — to subjects who struggle to define their own relationship to a world in which everything is changing.

Never has such change happened on a greater scale than in modern China. The different ways individuals deal with this is the subject of Last Train Home, a gorgeous new documentary by Lixin Fan, a Chinese filmmaker based in Montreal. Shot over three years, Last Train Home deals with an amazing social fact — every single Chinese New Year, 130 million migrant workers leave the cities and return home to their rural villages. The movie puts a human face on this migration by showing its affects on a single family..."

read more here with a 5 minute audio clip from NPR radio:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129755843

this movie is now a DVD and available for rental

SW China mega-city building huge security system
Mar 8

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.94f20013cdd393d22cb9d0a563a113f9.8d1&show_article=1

The mega-city of Chongqing in southwest China plans to build a $2.6 billion security system that will be one of the world's largest with 500,000 surveillance cameras, state media have said.

Chongqing police chief Wang Zhijun said the system would be the world's largest new security network since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the Global Times reported.

The system would dwarf a network of 40,000 security cameras installed in the capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region last year, following deadly July 2009 clashes between Muslim Uighurs and members of the majority Han group.

Chongqing's more than 500,000 cameras, which are due to be installed by 2012, will mainly be used for crime prevention, emergency controls and rescue operations, a police spokesman told the Global Times.

The computerised cameras will be managed under one network, allowing authorities and emergency services in the province-sized area of more than 30 million people to share the video feeds, the paper said.

A crackdown on organised crime two years ago in the sprawling municipality led to numerous high-level prosecutions for corruption and mafia crime that have shocked the nation as it revealed Chongqing's underworld.

It also helped make a star of Bo Xilai, Chongqing's charismatic Communist Party chief and one of a new generation of Chinese leaders who are set to take power in 2012.

Chinese authorities are increasingly enlisting technology for security purposes. Face recognition technology was widely rolled out in Beijing during the 2008 Olympic Games.

The government has expended tremendous resources to police online activity and block anti-government postings and other politically sensitive material with a system known as the "Great Firewall of China".

Love Always
mudra

With everything that has been going on in Japan these days I've been thinking more and more about those empty cities in China that were so beautifully created. Why did China do that? Did they know something awful was going to happen as it did in Japan? It is somewhat ironic as we have these two amazing cultures sitting right next to one another. Both are hard workers and have offered much to the world. If Japan falls into the sea where will the Japanese people go? Where will Sony end up or Toyota? What about all of those class products they produce.. what happens to that? And what happens to all the talented trained professionals who created this amazing culture?

At home here, we were even wondering what would happen to the Japanese car sales if there were not parts for repairs.

Just think on it. All those lovely empty cities waiting. Japan.. her people not wanting to let go and leave what they love yet many can't even drink the water. Two cultures.

Japan is afraid of China's political point of view and lack of some basic freedoms.

- But what if this could be easily solved? Truly it is possible to overcome these political issues if one thinks outside of the box. Recently I read where China wanted to establish some cities within the United States where they would have sovereign control over their domain. They would be on US soil yet have complete control over the areas they occupied.

What if one or more of these cities were rented out to the Japanese where they would have control of the space, care for it and control over their own people without any interference from the Chinese? This could be a great financial boon to both if it were established that the Japanese take care of their own people and the space being leased/rented to them. Perhaps they would be able to buy the cities like someone buys their house so as to give them incentive to stay, have their manufacturing there and their culture. This is certainly something worth thinking about. After all we are all one humanity on this one planet.

So tonight when I go to sleep I will keep in my mind and my heart open to Japan and China working together toward a better future where it is of mutual mental, emotional, spiritual and financial benefit to both nations. This is a possible solution to the critical situation in Japan and it also allows the Chinese to take on a major role in the world as benefactors to their neighbors.

Again, this is a delicate situation- yet possible if the Japanese can overcome their fear of being controlled by the Chinese AND the Chinese can allow Japanese citizens, even a Japanese city to exist within their borders. The Japanese would have to know they are free to continue as themselves even if they were to live upon Chinese soil... just as the Chinese would want that for themselves if they are to live on US soil.

Because when we examine what is reality, we all know... WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. If the people involved in making this happen are honorable - this solution provides a safe harbor for the many Japanese people who lost everything and also a safe harbor to those who will continue to lose all that falls into the sea and all that is toxic.

One big suggestion to all involved. No Nuclear power plants. Use zero point energy and cold fusion. Use solar.. or wind generators.. find a way to provide electricity that is not toxic to the earth or her people.

So what say you President Hu? Invite the Japanese into one of the empty Chinese cities and lease it out to them? It's certainly something worth thinking about, isn't it?

BRIC invited South Africa to become BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa )meeting.

The meeting today may announce the bad news for US dollar... lets wait..



Five of the largest emerging nations will push the U.S. and Europe to end their 65-year monopoly on leadership positions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, according to two diplomats who helped negotiate a statement by the countries.

The management structure of the institutions needs to reflect changes in the world economy, the draft statement by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa says, according to the diplomats, who asked not to be identified because the final text isn’t public. The section calls for a bigger role for developing countries in global institutions, a reference to concerns with how leaders are chosen at the World Bank and IMF.

“We will insist on the fact that governance at the IMF and the World Bank cannot be a systematic rotation between the U.S. and Europe, with the other countries excluded,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff told reporters in Beijing April 12. “There is no reason for that.”

The 2008 banking and credit crisis and subsequent recession in the U.S. and Western Europe eroded the influence of developed nations, a vacuum the so-called BRIC countries and other emerging nations are seeking to fill. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luiz Zapatero, in Beijing April 12-13, lauded China’s role in staving off a financial crisis in his country. China owns 25 billion euros ($36 billion) of Spain’s debt.

BRIC Summit
China is hosting a summit with Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management International, coined the term BRIC for the largest emerging markets -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- in 2001. South Africa was invited to the meeting at the southern beach side resort of Sanya as well.

Foreign currency reserves held by the five nations rose 13 percent to $3.93 trillion in the past year, accounting for more than a third of the global total, driven by their faster-growing economies. China leapfrogged Japan at the end of last year to become the world’s biggest economy after the U.S. following more than three decades of growth averaging 10 percent.

Fields of watermelon burst in China farm fiasco

BEIJING (AP) -- Watermelons have been bursting by the score in eastern China after farmers gave them overdoses of growth chemicals during wet weather, creating what state media called fields of "land mines."

About 20 farmers around Danyang city in Jiangsu province were affected, losing up to 115 acres (45 hectares) of melon, China Central Television said in an investigative report.

Prices over the past year prompted many farmers to jump into the watermelon market. All of those with exploding melons apparently were first-time users of the growth accelerator forchlorfenuron, though it has been widely available for some time, CCTV said.

Chinese regulations don't forbid the drug, and it is allowed in the U.S. on kiwi fruit and grapes. But the report underscores how farmers in China are abusing both legal and illegal chemicals, with many farms misusing pesticides and fertilizers.

Wang Liangju, a professor with College of Horticulture at Nanjing Agricultural University who has been to Danyang since the problems began to occur, said that forchlorfenuron is safe and effective when used properly.

He told The Associated Press that the drug had been used too late into the season, and that recent heavy rain also raised the risk of the fruit cracking open. But he said the variety of melon also played a role.

"If it had been used on very young fruit, it wouldn't be a problem," Wang said. "Another reason is that the melon they were planting is a thin-rind variety and these kind are actually nicknamed the 'exploding melon' because they tend to split."

Farmer Liu Mingsuo ended up with eight acres (three hectares) of ruined fruit and told CCTV that seeing his crop splitting open was like a knife cutting his heart.

"On May 7, I came out and counted 80 (burst watermelons) but by the afternoon it was 100," Liu said. "Two days later I didn't bother to count anymore."

Intact watermelons were being sold at a wholesale market in nearby Shanghai, the report said, but even those ones showed telltale signs of forchlorfenuron use: fibrous, misshapen fruit with mostly white instead of black seeds.

In March last year, Chinese authorities found that "yard-long" beans from the southern city of Sanya had been treated with the banned pesticide isocarbophos. The tainted beans turned up in several provinces, and the central city of Wuhan announced it destroyed 3.5 tons of the vegetable.

The government also has voiced alarm over the widespread overuse of food additives like dyes and sweeteners that retailers hope will make food more attractive and boost sales.

Though Chinese media remain under strict government control, domestic coverage of food safety scandals has become more aggressive in recent months, an apparent sign that the government has realized it needs help policing the troubled food industry.

The CCTV report on watermelons quoted Feng Shuangqing, a professor at the China Agricultural University, as saying the problem showed that China needs to clarify its farm chemical standards and supervision to protect consumer health.

The broadcaster described the watermelons as "land mines" and said they were exploding by the acre (hectare) in the Danyang area.

Many of farmers resorted to chopping up the fruit and feeding it to fish and pigs, the report said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_EXPLODING_WATERMELONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-05-17-07-49-09

Chinese school students hungry for anything 'American'
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=329957

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/12/us-china-unrest-idUSTRE77B07S20110812

(Reuters) - Thousands of Chinese took to the streets of a southwestern town on Thursday, with some smashing police vehicles in the latest protest by citizens angered by the rough handling of local officials, according to news reports.

The protest in Qianxi County, Guizhou province, was the latest of thousands of brief, local riots and demonstrations that happen in China every year, and like many recent outbreaks this one pitted residents against "urban administration" officials charged with enforcing law and order.

It’s no surprise that China’s pledges of support for indebted trade partners come with strings. But Premier Wen Jiabao, addressing the World Economic Forum on Sept. 14, was unusually blunt about what he expects in return: to be named by Europe as a market economy. That would cost Europe little — but that doesn’t mean it should agree.

Chinese investment must look more appealing as stricken euro zone states like Italy, Greece and Spain face up to the possibility investors will refuse to finance their deficits. Italy’s gouging by bond markets on Sept. 13 gives a taster. Just a drop of China’s $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves would give troubled countries a reprieve, and help lower their bond yields.

Market economy status is, on the face of it, an easy thing to give in return. After all, it’s just a label. But without it, countries can accuse China of dumping goods, and then use other countries’ prices -– say, India’s energy prices or Thailand’s land costs -– to prove their point. Under World Trade Organisation rules, China gets market status anyway in 2016, but as Wen says, bringing that forward a few years is the kind of thing one might expect “from one friend to another.”

Perhaps. Only China isn’t a market economy -– it’s a “socialist market economy.” Some important hallmarks aren’t there. The exchange rate is guided more by policy than market forces. Capital is allocated by decree rather than just by price. True, China isn’t the command economy it was under Chairman Mao. But the suppressed rate on deposits, for example, or the inflated lending rates for small companies, show that not everything is pure supply and demand.

So while Europe could give China what it wants -– and it has flexed the “market” definition before for Russia -– it’s hardly a commendable course. Far better for Europe’s leaders to get their own house in order, including planning for a Greek default and pushing Italy to cut back its debts. That might sound like harder work. But it would have the added appeal of making China’s veiled ultimatums redundant.

September 10, 2011 – BEIJING – A couple of months ago, a lot of people were passing around the news about China’s plan to create a megacity that would be home to 42 million people, the so-called “Turn the Pearl Delta Into One” idea. The reporting was generally favorable, painting a picture of economic growth and opportunity — the narrative of a prosperous China, with a growing middle class, that has become commonplace in recent years. Unfortunately, the view of China’s urban planning strategies from the ground is less shiny. A riveting report from Dateline, an Australian TV show, reveals a disturbing pattern of development for development’s sake — the construction of gigantic infrastructure projects with no regard for human needs. Take the New South China Mall, in Dongguan. The Dateline crew took a tour of the place, which has been 99 percent vacant since it opened in 2005, and the result is one of the most depressing things I have ever watched. Six years after its creation, what is touted as the largest mall in the world sits almost empty. One of the very few stores that’s in business is a toy shop, where the wistful owner spends his days dusting children’s bikes that no child will ever ride. He is lucky if he makes one sale a day.

And it’s not just that mall that sits empty. There are rows of massive empty skyscraper apartment buildings and central business districts in new cities around the country. This is at least part of the reality behind the megacities the Chinese are creating. “All the shops in this mall are empty,” says reporter Adrian Brown, walking down an immaculate but deserted street in one of the new cities, this one in north-central China. “Not that that worries the government, because they’re simply more concerned with maintaining economic growth, and one way of achieving that is building cities like this one.” According to Hong Kong-based real estate analyst Gillem Tulloch, who is interviewed in the piece, the housing units are priced well above what an average Chinese person can afford. The result, he says, is a housing bubble that is terrifying in size, “a property bubble like which I don’t think we’ve ever seen,” he says. “It will make the United States pale in comparison. It’s said that there’s around 64 million empty apartments…. It’s essentially the modern equivalent of building pyramids. It doesn’t add to the betterment of people’s lives, all it does is it promotes GDP.” –Grist.org & http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/