:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 5.18.2008 ::

:: China allows bloggers, others to spread quake news ::

By CARA ANNA

BEIJING (AP) — Almost nonstop, the uncensored opinions of Chinese citizens are popping up online, sent by text and instant message across a country shaken by its worst earthquake in three decades.

"Why were most of those killed in the earthquake children?" one post asked Thursday on FanFou, a microblogging site.

"How many donations will really reach the disaster area? This is doubtful," read another.

China is now home to the world's largest number of Internet and mobile phone users, and their hunger for quake news is forcing the government to let information flow in ways it hasn't before.

A fast-moving network of text messages, instant messages and blogs has been a powerful source of firsthand accounts of the disaster, as well as pleas for help and even passionate criticism of rescue efforts.

"I don't want to use the word transparent, but it's less censored, an almost free flow of discussion," said Xiao Qiang, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the China Internet Project, which monitors and translates Chinese Web sites.

China is well known for controlling the flow of information.

"We didn't know that hundreds of thousands of lives passed away during the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 until many years after the disaster took place," sociologist Zheng Yefu said in a commentary last week in the Southern Metropolis News.

But word about Monday's magnitude 7.9 quake spread quickly on Web sites and microblogging services, in which users share short bursts of information through text and instant messages. The services also publish the messages online.

"It all depends on the users; we don't edit it," FanFou founder Wang Xin said. "We just gather their words together."

A string of crises over the last few months — including crippling snowstorms and Tibetan protests — has taught the government a few lessons, Berkeley's Xiao said.

Government officials held a rare, real-time online exchange with ordinary Chinese on Friday to answer angry questions about why so many schools collapsed in the quake.

"They understand better now that to react slowly or to cover up in the Internet age is a bad idea," Xiao said in a telephone interview.

But the government is still monitoring the online conversation. Seventeen people have been detained since the earthquake, warned or forced to write apologies for online messages that "spread false information, made sensational statements and sapped public confidence," the state-run news agency, Xinhua, reported Thursday.

Read more here.

A L S O :

Quake Coverage: Is China's Grip on Media Looser?
npr
The strong hand of the Chinese government has long suppressed bad news. State news organizations often report stories to promote the central government's agenda. But coverage of the Sichuan earthquake indicates that the government may be loosening its grip on the media.

Blogs about: Chinese Earthquake
wordpress.com

Earthquake links from blogcatalog

a n d . . .

Sina.com link

posted by me

:: 9:25:00 PM [+] ::
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05/12/08: House passes RIAA/MPAA-backed PRO-IP Act

found at AlternativeTentacles.com
The US House of Representatives passed HR-4279, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, a.k.a. the PRO-IP Act, backed by the RIAA and the MPAA. The PRO-IP Act proposes to create a Cabinet level position to enforce intellectual property rights, as well as expanding forfeiture penalties that would allow federal law enforcement to seize computers and other private property. Please contact your representatives to express your concern regarding the PRO-IP Act.

More info:

+ HR-4279 info on opencongress.org
+ Electronic Frontier Foundation's article on PRO-IP
+ Variety article on PRO-IP with great quote from Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who opposed the bill.
+ CNet.com blog piece on PRO-IP

posted by me

:: 10:58:00 PM [+] ::
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:: 5 YEARS LATER ::

Bush pays price for 'Mission Accomplished' sign
White House admits fault on banner seen to declare Iraq victory 5 years ago

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the “Mission Accomplished” banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.

Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush’s dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said at the time. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on.” The “Mission Accomplished” banner was prominently displayed above him — a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.

After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the “Mission Accomplished” phrase referred to the carrier’s crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq. Bush, in October 2003, disavowed any connection with the “Mission Accomplished” message. He said the White House had nothing to do with the banner; a spokesman later said the ship’s crew asked for the sign and the White House staff had it made by a private vendor.

“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said ‘mission accomplished’ for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. “And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.”

She said what is important now is “how the president would describe the fight today. It’s been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy.”

At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.

OH, HAVE WE GOT A VIDEO?

'Mission Accomplished'
May 1, 2003: Aboard the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, President George W. Bush declares the ground war in Iraq is over.

posted by me

:: 4:07:00 PM [+] ::
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