Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Mining Miracle in China

As America has a disaster in the coal mines of West Virginia.

"
The coal mine explosion killed 25 workers and left at least four others missing. It is the worst US mine disaster in more than a quarter century."

Related:
Mining Chinese Corruption

"‘Miracle’ in flooded Chinese coal mine; 115 are rescued on 8th day trapped" by Gillian Wong, Associated Press | April 6, 2010

XIANGNING, China — The rescue was a rare piece of good news for a coal-mining industry that is notoriously the world’s deadliest. Chinese officials called it a miracle.

Can atheists say that?

State TV repeatedly broadcast images of cheering and crying rescuers — a cathartic moment for the country observing “grave-sweeping day,’’ a traditional time for remembering the dead.

You know, they do say the Lord works in mysterious ways and I celebrate the preservation of as much life as possible.

Even for the global scum; today you are spared the whip of the keyboard. It is all simply SO SAD!

Do you sometimes think COSMIC FORCES are SENDING a MESSAGE, America?

“This is probably one of the most amazing rescues in the history of mining anywhere,’’ said David Feickert, a coal mine safety adviser to the Chinese government.

Some miners told rescuers of eating tree bark and drinking the filthy water to survive. Some had strapped themselves to the shafts’ walls with their belts — or similarly suspended themselves using their clothes — to avoid drowning while they slept. Some climbed into a mining cart that floated by.

One miner “showed us the sawdust from his pocket. He told me it was hard to chew,’’ the leader of one of the rescue teams, Chen Yongsheng, told reporters....

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Within hours, the trickle turned into a wave of rescues. Dozens of miners emerged on stretchers — their bodies wrapped in blankets and their eyes covered to shield them from the light — and were carried to waiting ambulances.

Can you imagine being in total darkness for eight days?

Only if you were a "terrorist" in an AmeriKan torture chamber I suppose.

“This morning, we wished for a miracle to happen again,’’ said Liu Dezheng, a spokesman for the rescue operation. “Six hours later, miracles have really happened.’’

HOW SAD that it takes an ATHEISTIC, COMMUNIST CHINESE to have to POINT THAT OUT to the REST of the RELIGIOUS WORLD, 'eh?


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Not here, America.

Where did we go wrong, huh?

Related:

"
Yahoo, Google note new problems in China" by Anita Chang, Associated Press | March 31, 2010

BEIJING — Yahoo e-mail accounts belonging to foreign journalists appeared to have been hacked and Google’s Chinese search engine was intermittently blocked yesterday, the latest troubles in China’s heavily censored Internet market.

I covered this yesterday: Googling China

Meanwhile, I'm over here in a swamp of information -- the exact opposite of this allegation and a just as effective way of controlling the masses.

The Yahoo Inc. accounts of at least three journalists and an analyst became inaccessible over the last few weeks. They were greeted with messages saying, “We’ve detected an issue with your account’’ and were told to contact Yahoo, they said yesterday. Yahoo technicians told one of the four that his account had been hacked and restored his access, but it was not clear if the other instances were related.

Sensitivity about Internet security has run high since Google Inc. announced in January it might leave China after a series of cyber attacks and complaints about censorship. Last week, Google made a partial retreat, shutting down its search engine in mainland China and redirecting those queries offshore, to the freer territory of Hong Kong.

Analysts have been watching closely to see if China retaliates for Google’s high-profile departure from the mainland search engine market. Many redirected queries appeared blocked yesterday on the search engine based in Hong Kong. Google initially blamed the trouble on an internal revision.

But after further investigation, the company said it realized the changes in its search settings had occurred a week ago without disrupting its results in mainland China. That discovery led Google to conclude the trouble stemmed from changes in China’s “Great Firewall’’ — the nickname for the tools the government uses to block access to sites deemed to be subversive or pornographic.

Well, they do have the other Great Wall, and Israel's wall of apartheid seems to be acceptable, so what's the hubbub, bub?

Without doing anything on its end, Google said its search traffic from mainland China appeared to be flowing freely again early this morning in Beijing.

Well, that should cool things down a bit then.

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And I think I will go get a Chinese lunch today:

A pedestrian passed a  McDonald’s billboard in Beijing. China is McDonald’s fastest-growing  global market, said the company’s president for Asia, Pacific, Middle  East, and Africa.
A pedestrian passed a McDonald’s billboard in Beijing. China is McDonald’s fastest-growing global market, said the company’s president for Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. (Teh Eng Koon/ AFP/ Getty Images/ File 2007)

That is not what I had in mind. I can get that around here; seems like there is one in every town.
And yet the emaciated kids around here are being scolded for obesity?

Look, I know it is a business article, but don't you think the MSM cheering here is contrary to the message (the way we make countries take our cigarettes or slap sanctions on them while preaching the sins of smoking at home -- in a country founded by tobacco farmers).

Or is it just an acceptable part of the agenda-pushing to deliver heart disease, diabetes, and all the other fast foods ills to the Chinese?


"
McDonald’s opens Shanghai school; Courses are more about business than burgers" by Elaine Kurtenbach, Associated Press | March 31, 2010

SHANGHAI — China’s newest university has no football field or fancy library. For inspiration, it looks not to Confucius, but to Ronald McDonald. But Shanghai’s Hamburger U. aspires to be a leader in higher learning for ambitious Chinese managers.

I'm not commenting on insulting garbage today.

McDonald’s Corp. inaugurated its first Hamburger University in China yesterday to train new generations of managers as foreign companies step up efforts to develop and keep Chinese talent. China is McDonald’s fastest-growing global market, said Tim Fenton, the company’s president for Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and Africa.

He said the country’s $300 billion-a-year “informal eating out’’ market is expanding at an annual rate of 10 percent, compared with 2 to 3 percent in the United States.

“It’s because of China’s strategic importance to McDonald’s that we have chosen to have our new Hamburger University in Shanghai,’’ Fenton said. “We have to get ahead of the people curve.’’

Foreign companies in China are focusing on developing local managers but face pressure to keep them as they move on for better opportunities. Yesterday, the American Chamber of Commerce said a survey of 202 multinational companies found they are changing strategies to adapt to rising costs and high employee turnover....

Shanghai’s $250 million Hamburger U., the company’s seventh worldwide, has a statue of company symbol Ronald McDonald but will not teach how to make burgers and fries. The emphasis is on running businesses better....

Translation: Squeezing profits with "cost cuts."

Hamburger U. Shanghai’s courses can be used in some cases to earn college credit, and the company says graduates use such schools as a springboard to pursue college degrees. “We will do our best to be the Harvard for our industry,’’ said the school’s dean, Susanna Li.

Yeah, great.

Other companies also are trying to get more for their payroll spending.

I TOLD YOU!

Average earnings before interest and tax of the companies replying to the American Chamber of Commerce survey fell to 8.3 percent in 2009 from 15 percent the year before. Some are shifting production to lower-cost regions of China and elsewhere in Asia, especially India....

Presented as a good thing in the pro-corporate paper.

Yeah, worker's and their wages are afterthoughts.

And let's face it, McDonald's is not exactly the career success people spout about.

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