News » Politics » Chinese food bestseller set for Korean market
News » Politics » Chinese food bestseller set for Korean market |
- Chinese food bestseller set for Korean market
- Death toll nearly doubles amid China mine rescue
- Defending the East China Sea From China
- Top China Stories from WSJ: European Debt Buy, Mine Explosion, Japan Pressure
- US raps China over repatriation of Myanmar refugees
- China seeks to allay missile test fears
- The US Election and China—Will Romney Be Tougher Than Obama?
- Nature, nurture or magic? Guangzhou college teaches Harry Potter and genetics
- Yangzhou uni freshmen bargain for senior 'brothers and sisters'
- Beijing enters summer food-poisoning season
- How much 'exchange' happens on China's youth abroad programs?
- Beijing pledges to tackle solar industry's international struggles
- Love letters: a lost art in digital age
- Chinese freight industry losing the wind in its sails
- Justice Sought For Missing
- Plans to Raise Rice Output
- 2012: The Year China Buys More Smartphones Than The U.S.
- Bain protesters highlight Mitt Romney's real record on job creation | Amy Goodman
- Chinese impressionist starts artistic residency in Liverpool
- Flats, cars and oil for China: Angola's growth tempered by growing inequality
| Chinese food bestseller set for Korean market Posted: 31 Aug 2012 05:22 AM PDT A Chinese publisher on Wednesday signed a contract to introduce a recent bestseller on Chinese food culture to Korean readers. Publishers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the US have already obtained copyrig... | ||
| Death toll nearly doubles amid China mine rescue Posted: 31 Aug 2012 12:04 AM PDT The death toll from the coal mine blast in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan nearly doubled by early Friday to 37, as rescuers tried to reach 10 miners still missing, according to the local government. | ||
| Defending the East China Sea From China Posted: 30 Aug 2012 08:11 PM PDT The U.S. military is pivoting to East Asia as territorial flare-ups spread across the region. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks with defense expert Dr. John Lee about the increasing U.S. presence and its affect on China and its neighbors. | ||
| Top China Stories from WSJ: European Debt Buy, Mine Explosion, Japan Pressure Posted: 30 Aug 2012 06:02 PM PDT China will keep buying European government debt on the condition of a full evaluation of risk; a mine explosion killed at least 19 people in southwest China; Japan's foreign minister ratcheted up pressure on South Korea over a regional island dispute. | ||
| US raps China over repatriation of Myanmar refugees Posted: 30 Aug 2012 05:33 PM PDT The United States on Thursday criticized China after accusations that it forced thousands of refugees from Myanmar's Kachin minority back across the border despite ongoing fighting. 
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| China seeks to allay missile test fears Posted: 30 Aug 2012 05:13 PM PDT China on Thursday said its recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests were not aimed at any specific country. But it did not confirm or deny reports that the missiles are capable of hitting targets in the US. 
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| The US Election and China—Will Romney Be Tougher Than Obama? Posted: 30 Aug 2012 06:37 AM PDT The US presidential election is heating up, and more and more, it has to do with China. Compared to President Obama, how tough would Romney be on China? | ||
| Nature, nurture or magic? Guangzhou college teaches Harry Potter and genetics Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT Are broomsticks able to fly because of a mysterious anti-gravity force? Can three-headed monsters be explained by genetic engineering? In February this year, the medical school of Sun Yat-sen Universi... | ||
| Yangzhou uni freshmen bargain for senior 'brothers and sisters' Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT The new semester is coming, students are back on campus, and "your sisters and brothers in the senior class are up for bargains now!" say ads all over the campus of Yangzhou University in Jiangsu prov... | ||
| Beijing enters summer food-poisoning season Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT Beijing is coming into the season of the proliferation of poisonous bacteria in food, causing widespread cases of food poisoning in the city, according to inspection authorities in the Chinese capital... | ||
| How much 'exchange' happens on China's youth abroad programs? Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT Sending their children to study and travel abroad in the hopes of improving their language skills and broaden their horizons has became quite the fad for wealthy Chinese families. But many questions h... | ||
| Beijing pledges to tackle solar industry's international struggles Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT China's central government has pledged to provide assistance and support for the country's photovoltaic enterprises against antidumping probes and countervailing duties from importing nations. But it ... | ||
| Love letters: a lost art in digital age Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT An intimate message delivered by MSN? Sure. A love letter to be written by hand? It depends. Nowadays, young lovers of China are saturated in fast-food culture and getting all the more impatient... | ||
| Chinese freight industry losing the wind in its sails Posted: 31 Aug 2012 02:06 AM PDT As the foreign trade winds filling the sails of China's freight industry continue to slacken, the volume of goods that passed through Shanghai in July dropped to the port's lowest level in the past 33... | ||
| Posted: 30 Aug 2012 04:07 PM PDT An exile group called on China Thursday to account for thousands of ethnic Uyghurs believed to be victims of enforced or involuntary disappearances in the country's northwestern Xinjiang region. Beijing is "systematically" using the tactic of enforced disappearances to silence Uyghurs who voice opposition to Beijing's policies in the region, the exile World Uyghur Congress (WUC) said in a statement marking the U.N.'s International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. "Many Uyghurs have attempted to uncover the whereabouts, condition, and fate of their forcibly disappeared loved ones, but continually find their requests for information being rejected or ignored," WUC President Rebiya Kadeer said. She has estimated 10,000 Uyghurs have been forcibly disappeared since deadly violence rocked the Xinjiang region in July 2009 following long-simmering tensions between Han Chinese and Uyghurs. Kadeer said the Chinese authorities have ignored requests for information about the missing, creating a "stubborn culture of impunity." China should provide reparations to the victims of the "deeply concerning" practice, the WUC said. Legalities The practice of forced disappearances, which has also been used against other groups in China, will effectively be legalized under upcoming amendments to China's Criminal Procedure Law, human rights groups say. "Some of these amendments, notably Article 73 [of the revised law], will in effect legalize the already widespread of enforced disappearances of Uyghurs," Kadeer said. The article, which governs "residential surveillance," sets out provisions allowing authorities to hold individuals under effective house arrest in their homes or at a "designated abode." The amendments, passed by the National People's Council in March 2012, could have "drastic" consequences for Uyghurs when they take effect next year, the WUC said. International convention But even if the practice is effectively made legal under China's laws, it is still a clear breach of international rights law, the group said. China has not signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICCPED), which explicitly bans the practice, but it is a signatory of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which contains similar provisions. "China has not ratified nor shown any interest in signing this vital human rights treaty which enshrines into international law the accepted standards states should adopt in regards to preventing such a human rights violation," the WUC said. It urged the international community to press China to ratify the ICCPED, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006 and went into force in 2010, is designed as an international instrument to prevent governments from carrying out forced disappearances. The International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances is marked to honor the missing victims and to highlight the seriousness of the offense. "It is an act that negates the very essence of humanity and is contrary to the deepest values of any society," a group of independent United Nations experts said in a statement Thursday. Reported by Rachel Vandenbrink. | ||
| Posted: 30 Aug 2012 03:06 PM PDT Cambodia, Laos, and Burma can become more efficient rice producers by improving their transport and marketing networks and enhancing research, the Asian Development Bank said in a report Thursday aimed at boosting rice production and stabilizing prices of the region's staple food. | ||
| 2012: The Year China Buys More Smartphones Than The U.S. Posted: 30 Aug 2012 04:25 AM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest smartphone market this year, according to research firm IDC, which e... Read more: Smartphone, Smartphones, China Smartphone Market, China, Reuters, Technology News This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||
| Bain protesters highlight Mitt Romney's real record on job creation | Amy Goodman Posted: 30 Aug 2012 12:28 PM PDT The Republican presidential nominee still earns millions from his shares in Bain – which is still busy sending US jobs to China Four hardy souls from rural Illinois joined tens of thousands of people undeterred by threats of Hurricane Isaac during this week's Republican National Convention (RNC). They weren't among the almost 2,400 delegates to the convention, though; nor were they from the press corps, said to number 15,000. They weren't part of the massive police force assembled here, more than 3,000 strong, all paid for with $50m of US taxpayer money. These four were about to join a much larger group: the more than 2.4 million people in the past decade whose US jobs have been shipped to China. In their case, the company laying them off and sending their jobs overseas is Bain Capital, co-founded by the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. We met the group at Romneyville, a tent city on the outskirts of downtown Tampa, established by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign – in the spirit of the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. About 200 people gathered before the makeshift stage to hear speakers and musicians, under intermittent downpours and the noise of three police helicopters drowning out the voices of the anti-poverty activists. Scores of police on bicycles occupied the surrounding streets. Cheryl Randecker was one of those four we met at Romneyville whose Bain jobs are among 170 at their firm slated to be offshored. They build transmission sensors for many cars and trucks made in the United States. Cheryl was sent to China to train workers there, not knowing that the company was about to be sold and the jobs she was training people for included her own. I asked her how it felt to be training her own replacements after working at the same company for 33 years:
Cheryl and her co-workers learned that the Honeywell division they had been working for had been sold to Sensata Technologies. They researched Sensata. she said:
Cheryl and her co-workers started a petition that got 35,000 signatures, which they delivered to Bain Capital in Evanston, Illinois. They work in Freeport, in the north-west corner of Illinois, not far from Iowa and Wisconsin. Tom Gaulrapp, another 33-year veteran of the Honeywell company now owned by Sensata/Bain, knew that Romney would be campaigning in both of those swing states. He described their efforts that followed:
So they went to a campaign event where Romney was speaking, in Bettendorf, Iowa. Tom stood up and appealed to Romney to come to Freeport to help them save their jobs. He was shouted down by the crowd, which chanted, "USA! USA!" Tom continued:
I asked Cheryl why they were targeting Romney, who no longer runs Bain. "Mitt Romney created the model of outsourcing jobs," she explained:
Bonnie Borman was pregnant with her daughter when she started at the factory 23 years ago. She told me:
Tom added:
Just to be safe, they should bring a photo ID.
© 2012 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Chinese impressionist starts artistic residency in Liverpool Posted: 30 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT With two months ahead of him, Lucian Freud admirer Zhao Zhu has already painted three of the city's bigwigs. Plenty more to come Liverpool has got a Chinese artist in residence for the next two months and already some of its citizens have been immortalised in his oils. Zhao Zhu has chosen to find an Oriental take on the traditionally European art of oil painting and has made a considerable name for himself in Guizhou province where he teaches at the university in the capital, Guiyang. His enthusiasm for modern portrait artists, particularly distinctive ones such as Lucian Freud, has led to a fusion of work influenced by their style with distinctively Chinese touches. He first had a go at painting as a ten-year-old schoolboy, much like another English counterpart, David Hockney, and was soon out with crayons and later tubes of paint and canvases, sketching people, landscapes and still life. He won a place at China's Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing in 1983 and there began to adapt his experience of his own country with techniques from overseas, especially the European impressionist tradition. He says:
His residency at Liverpool's View Two gallery in Mathew Street coincides with his first UK exhibition and the chance to paint protraits of Europeans. Liverpool's Three Graces have often been compared with or even mistaken for Shanghai's Bund and Zhou says:
His visit follows successful stints for the exhibition, entitled Face to Face, in Shanghai and at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Since arriving on Merseyside, he has done portraits of the architect and owner of View Two, Ken Martin, and businessman David Doyle. Next week, at a private view on 6 September, he will unveil his third commission, of Brian Wong, a considerable figure in Liverpool's Chinatown. More details of the View Two exhibition are online here. guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Flats, cars and oil for China: Angola's growth tempered by growing inequality Posted: 30 Aug 2012 06:25 AM PDT José Eduardo dos Santos's bid for re-election after 33 years in power is fuelled more by economic than democratic success When the glass doors swing open at Porsche Centre Luanda, in the capital of Angola, Esmeraldo Chinguto jumps to his feet in the hope of another sale. On display in the showroom this week was a model priced at around $170,000 (£107,390). "The Angolan people like some luxuries and some can afford a Porsche," said Chinguto, who has sold around 50 since opening two-and-a-half years ago. "We thought we'd have problems selling but now there is demand. More and more people want sports cars." A decade ago this would have seemed like fantasy. Angola was shattered by five centuries of Portuguese colonialism and a 27-year civil war between the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), backed by Russia and Cuba, and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) rebels, aided by the United States and apartheid South Africa. Today it is the third biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, having expanded by an average of 15% between 2002 and 2008. Despite a subsequent slowdown, growth is predicted to rebound to between 8% and 10% this year. On Friday Angola goes to the polls with President José Eduardo dos Santos, Africa's second longest-serving leader of 33 years, on course to secure another term. He clams credit for stabilising the country and making it a model for the continent. But Angola's story is also much of Africa's story, warts and all. The spectacular growth has created few jobs and entrenched or even deepened inequality. Angola is China's biggest trading partner in Africa with some $24.8bn in 2010, an uneven oil-for-infrastructure relationship that has brought tangible benefits but underlined that natural resources can be both a blessing and a curse. None of this appears to have a causal link to reducing corruption or enhancing human rights and democracy – the elections are seen by many as a sham intended to buy superficial legitimacy. Similar observations have been made about Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and other fast-growing "African lions". "In most African countries, Angola is very symbolic," said Elias Isaac, country director for the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (Osisa). "This economic growth is not synonymous with political democratic development. We are starting to understand that economy and democracy don't have much to do with each other. "We have double-digit growth but do we see the same in political development or in the human rights arena? Can we say there has been the same growth? You can see infrastructure and growth in the oil sector, but how much has this really bettered the lives of the people? The elections are far from being fair, transparent and just." Angola is following the Chinese development model, Isaac argues, and the authoritarian Dos Santos's embrace of Beijing is visible everywhere. Chinese-built towers are rising in Luanda – numerous cranes dotting the skyline promise more to come. Roads and railways have been laid across the country. Isaac estimates that more than 300,000 Chinese people have moved here in the past decade, although the MPLA says the official figure is 40,000 to 43,000. Nowhere has China changed the landscape more emphatically than Kilamba, a city 18 miles outside Luanda built from scratch in three years for a reported $3.5bn. It contains 10,000 apartments so far, in blocks that might appear Soviet but for shades of blue, green and yellow. There are smooth roads and pavements, working traffic lights and basketball courts, and plans for schools, medical centres, a shopping mall with cinema and a five-star hotel. Romulo Bedago, commercial manager for the onsite estate agent Delta Imobiliária said: "I think it's a beautiful city. The apartments are good. We are giving an example to Africa and the world that it's possible." Asked if Kilamba was somewhat soulless, he insisted: "It has character. The soul is coming." Despite the promise of reliable electricity and water and respite from Luanda's traffic jams, take-up was slow when the apartments went on sale last October. "It was a ghost town," Bedago admitted. "But now people are moving. We want people to move in because the city needs to be alive." A three-bedroom apartment costs $125,000; a five-bedroom costs $200,000 – cheaper than in Luanda, but beyond the means of the majority of Angolans living on less than $2 a day. Stung by criticism, the authorities subsequently created a rental option for civil servants – a three-bedroom flat costs $603 per month – and intend extending this to the public. Bedago says 2,200 apartments have now been allocated, although only 500 people are living on site. Among them is Antonio Santos, 43, a government public relations officer who rented five bedrooms two weeks ago. "The Chinese are building for my country," he said. "They are having a positive impact on Angola." Not everyone agrees. Critics say Africa's second-biggest oil producer got a raw deal and is selling to China at around $60 a barrel, well below global prices, with infrastructure alone an insufficient return. They question why unskilled Chinese labourers have taken jobs that could have gone to Angolans, sowing resentment. Angola's boom has also driven a dangerous wedge between the haves and the have-nots. BMWs, Porsches and Land Cruisers meander through Luanda past beggars missing limbs due to the civil war or polio. Designer shops and luxury beachside restaurants sit cheek-by-jowl with crammed, tin-roof shantytowns strewn with rubbish and resembling Brazilian favelas. Luanda has been dubbed the most overpriced city in the world. "If this city is expensive for expats, can you imagine for Angolans?" said Isaac of Osisa. "It's hell. "Angola doesn't have a middle class. If I earn $4,000 to 5,000, I'm not middle class. My rent would be $2,000 to 3,000, I'd need to budget $500 for water and $400 to 500 for two electricity generators in my house. Doctors, lawyers and economists can't afford to save. You ask an Angolan doctor or lawyer how often he can afford to take his family to a restaurant: it's two or three times a month." Dos Santos stands accused of abusing the oil wealth to enrich himself, his family and a narrow elite while failing to deliver housing, education and jobs to the majority. Vanity projects include an ocean bay promenade with manicured lawns and imported palm trees that he officially opened this week. But the politically astute Dos Santos has begun to address the social frustrations ahead of the election, where his MPLA faces Unita at the ballot box. "I am the first to admit the difficult reality that many families face," he told supporters in a campaign speech last weekend. "We will not stand and watch while there are situations of huge inequality in our land." Campaigning under the slogan "Grow More, Distribute Better", the MPLA has pledged to introduce a minimum wage and subsidies for the elderly. The party airs video adverts listing its achievements: 2,700 km of railways, 148 railway stations, 10 renovated airports, 400 bridges, 6,500 km of roads. The MPLA also claims it has cut poverty from 68% of the population in 2002 to around 39% in 2009, and raised average life expectency from 42 to 52. "We have to be serious and sincere," said Rui Pinto de Andrade, a party spokesman, speaking at its headquarters on Ho Chi Minh Street. "In your country, is there still hunger or not? Did you know Angola when it was a destroyed place? It was difficult to go 2km from here because of the state of the roads. In that scenario, what would you do first, helping the people or building infrastructure? If you don't first have a water supply and rebuilt roads and power plants, how do you help people?" Describing China's help as "wonderful", he continued: "We are working hard to minimise poverty. Nowhere in the world is everyone rich. Everywhere in the world has people who are well educated and who are not. The other kind of society doesn't exist. If it does, give us the formula and make us a paradise country." Back at the gleaming Porsche Centre Luanda, Esmeraldo Chinguto is among those reaping the rewards of Africa's new economic dynamo. "We have to follow the constitution and we have to remember one thing: in Africa we look at our head of state as our father and it is very difficult to change," mused the former army lieutenant colonel. "The Angolan people look at our head of state as a father. "He gives confidence to all Angolans and makes them happy. This shouldn't be changed or it will stop all development programmes and plans for three or four years. The machine is running at such speed that if we broke it – oh, my goodness." guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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