American Buddhist Net

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse and Google, the world’s largest search engine, is now “99.9 percent” certain to shut its Chinese search engine, the Financial Times said on Saturday.

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This is getting interesting. Whatever else, if Google leaves there will be a strong reaction in China. Dirty politics aside, the nub of this issue is an open Internet versus a closed one. Google is favored by better educated Chinese, who will probably still be able to access it on servers outside of China. Ultimately, I don't think China has a chance in this fight if the US plays its cards right, which so far it has been doing. Clinton's strong statements about Internet freedom last week and the FCC's proposals today greatly enhance Google's position. Clearly, these statements were made with an understanding of the Google-China dispute. I have had almost nothing but problems with US foreign and domestic policy for a long time, but this all looks fine to me. The Chinese model for the Internet has essentially no argument in its favor. At the same time, the US cannot easily abandon its own basic principles of free speech, so the two are natural adversaries on this front. Add to that the power of an open Internet on China's population and you have another reason for the US to take the position it has. Progressive Chinese should want China to lose this one. Ultimately, this matter comes down to technology, and that is one genie no one - not even China - will be able to put back in the bottle. ABN

BEIJING — One of China’s top Internet regulators warned bluntly on Friday that any move by Google to stop censoring its Chinese search engine would be “irresponsible” and would draw a response from Beijing.

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The issue, simply stated, is Internet freedom or not. The Chinese model of a closed and restricted Internet is horrible. I hope they utterly and completely fail. I hope Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Europe also fail in their short-sighted and cowardly attempts at censorship. Right now, the USA is the only major voice in the world supporting an open, uncensored Internet. Americans should be paying attention to world trends and domestic ones and never allow anyone to abridge our freedom of speech. Do not give an inch on this matter because all of world history stands in the balance. ABN

Tarpley makes some good points, but he is missing the crucial point that we have to take sides--either an open Internet or a closed one. For now, the US is far more supportive of an open Internet than China. The Obama administration seems to have made this position clear. I hope they stick to it. An open Internet is BOTH in the best interests of the USA and the world. IF the US abuses the principle of an open Internet, which they may very well do, I will oppose that 100%. But let's wait for that to happen before we oppose it. As for the partnership between Google and the NSA, same difference--it comes down to which side is more pro-open Internet. Yes, it's all dirty politics but there is no way to avoid that, so the US is the best bet again. I do not see anything worth supporting in the Chinese position. I am putting my money on the USA on this one. ABN

Tibetans living in-exile in India staged a protest demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy here on Friday to mark the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan Women's Uprising Day which came two days after an uprising led by the Dalai Lama against Chinese rule in 1959.

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Chinese netizens have found a creatively flamboyant, sometimes off-color, new way to voice their discontent about the social dilemmas in China—with less chance of raising a red flag. They have invented slang Internet expressions in both Chinese and English.

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VIENTIANE - Low water levels on the upper Mekong River have renewed criticism over hydropower dams China has erected on the waterway's upper reaches. Environmental groups and governments have pinned blame on China's inward-looking water management policies, although some experts say the real culprit is unusually severe drought conditions in southwestern China, northern Thailand and Laos.

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SYDNEY : More than 90 authors, including Nobel winner JM Coetzee, have condemned China for refusing an HIV-positive Australian writer entry to the country for a government-sponsored tour.

Robert Dessaix revealed his health status in his application for a visa which was refused without explanation.

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China has selected two military air transport pilots as its first female astronauts, the country's state media reported Wednesday. The only hitch? The women had to be hitched – as in married – to make the cut.

Zhang Jianqi, the former deputy commander of China's human spaceflight program, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency that aside from being married to their respective spouses, the two female astronauts met the exact same criteria as the country's male spaceflyers.

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At least 11 tigers have died of hunger and malnutrition in a Chinese zoo so far this year, the Year of the Tiger in the lunar calendar, local media reported on Thursday.

China's wild tiger population is dwindling, but a number of tigers still live in zoos and breeding centres in the northeast.

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Chinese security forces have stepped up a crackdown in Tibet's capital Lhasa, two years after protests marking a failed 1959 uprising erupted in deadly violence, the police and reports said Thursday.

The "strike hard storm" began earlier this month and is aimed at cracking down on Tibetan independence activities and ordinary crime, a policeman at the city's Niangre precinct told AFP by phone.

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In his annual address from exile in India on the 51st anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against China, he said: “They are putting the monks and nuns in prison-like conditions, depriving them of the opportunity to study and practise in peace.

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The post-80s generation is getting married in droves and their weddings are becoming ever more costly and lavish affairs, Shi Yingying reports

Yvonne Yu's dream wedding at a top Shanghai hotel this month will cost an estimated 200,000 yuan ($30,000).

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Girls stand in line during the opening ceremony of a training camp in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, March 8, 2010. Nearly 300 girls from across China began a 2-month trainning session Monday in Hangzhou and Shanghai in preparation for their work as hostesses during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

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Olympic charm school is 'beauty bootcamp'

Hong Kong's top lawyers and Chinese officials are trading blows over the legality of a new campaign for democracy in the former British colony that frames an upcoming special election as a de facto referendum on political reform.

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Hundreds of Tibetans, including Buddhist monks and nuns, Wednesday remembered their forefathers' uprising against the Chinese annexation of their land in 1959 and chanted slogans for a free Tibet in Kathmandu despite a massive police crackdown and arrests.

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The Dalai Lama has lashed out at Chinese authorities, accusing them of trying to "annihilate Buddhism" in Tibet as he commemorated a failed uprising against China's rule over the region.

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WASHINGTON—Two years after protests against Chinese rule erupted into rioting in the Tibetan capital and spread across western China, sporadic talks between Beijing and envoys of the Dalai Lama appear to have achieved little progress.

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Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising

IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters.

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Chinese authorities sentenced a popular Tibetan singer to 15 months of 're-education through labour' after he released an album containing lyrics deemed political, US-based Radio Free Asia said Monday.

The broadcaster said it obtained a copy of a document declaring that Tashi Dhondup was sent to a labour camp in his home province Qinghai because he had 'violated laws' by singing songs in support of Tibetan independence and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

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After storming Africa, resource-hungry China Monday made a big opening into the Latin American mineral market by inking a USD 1-billion deal with Canadian copper major Quadra Mining Ltd for a stake in its copper operations in Chile.

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The Chinese government says that it will have the final say, rather than the Dalai Lama, on who succeeds him as Tibet's spiritual leader.

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LHASA, China — The troops with automatic rifles patrolling the Tibetan quarter of the capital of Chinese-controlled Tibet are as ever-present as Buddhist pilgrims.

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Ahead of the 51st anniversary of a failed uprising by Tibetans against the invasion and annexation of their country by China, Nepal police Sunday arrested the envoy of exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama in Kathmandu.

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Nepal police arrest Dalai Lama’s representative

President Ma Ying-jeou is in a hurry to sign an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement so he can realize his ultimate aim of unification with China, reports quoted experts yesterday.

Ma and his government have been pushing for the ECFA to be signed in May or June, despite widespread opposition within Taiwan.

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China shed a glimmer of light yesterday on the life of a young Tibetan man who vanished 15 years ago after the Dalai Lama declared him to be the reincarnation of the second-highest monk in Tibetan Buddhism.

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China is farming African wild Rhinos in order to harvest their horns for alleged medicinal properties, a newspaper reported Sunday quoting a report by international conservation monitors.

China has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000 - far more than is needed to promote tourism - with the possible aim of setting up rhino farms, the Sunday Times quoted the report as saying.

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A PIG deserves at least 12 hours being alone, some walking, patting, and music if possible, before being slaughtered, a central China city authority has ordered.

Zhengzhou City Commerce Commission said it imposed the requirements as a part of a humane slaughter campaign. They said a peaceful slaughter would add more flavor to the pork, the Henan Business Daily reported yesterday.

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China has asked Japan to offer an appropriate resolution to the plight of eight Chinese victims forced into serving as "comfort women" for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

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Last December, the South Korean government found itself walking a tightrope while planning to join the international troops in Afghanistan.

It was a complexity created by a number—number “4” to be precise.

As it happened, South Korea was the 44th member to join the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force fighting the insurgents in Afghanistan. The number “44” bothered the government.

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The grandson of Mao Zedong lost his bearings at the symbolic heart of the nation his grandfather founded and had to rely on aides to rescue him from a press pack. Mao Xinyu, who is a senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army, was mobbed by journalists upon leaving the opening session of China's parliament in Beijing.

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