"In China, Michelle Obama turns her focus on education" by Didi Tang | Associated Press March 24, 2014
BEIJING — Michelle Obama brought the importance of education to the foreground on Sunday on the third day of a visit to China, where she has won praise for her approachability and admiration for her comments supporting freedom of speech.
Obama, traveling with her two daughters, has been photographed at famous spots including the Forbidden City and Great Wall during the first independent trip by a US president’s wife to China.
Not trying to be a poop, but what's the carbon footprint on this excursion doing to China's smog problem?
She has won compliments for her elegant clothing and her interactions with ordinary people in a country where it is rare to see leaders’ spouses or children in public.
Obviously not made in Bangladesh or bought at Walmart, and our overlords only see us in controlled photo opportunity sessions.
‘‘She is very warm and frank, and when she is talking to people she conscientiously listens to what they have to say,’’ said Wu Qing, a retired professor of Beijing Foreign Studies University who met Obama on Sunday.
‘‘In China, we usually use weather to express our mood or state of mind, so the fact that the weather has been so nice these few days means she is very welcome in China,’’ Wu said.
Obama hosted a discussion about education with a handful of Chinese professors, students, and parents, as well as the new US ambassador to China, Max Baucus, at the US Embassy on Sunday morning.
Let's hope he doesn't raise a raucous.
In the afternoon, she visited part of the Great Wall in the northern Beijing suburbs with her daughters, 15-year-old Malia and 12-year-old Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson.
There, Obama and her daughters walked a stretch of the wall that looks out to a massive rock inscription on a hillside that reads in Chinese: ‘‘Loyal to Chairman Mao.’’
(Blog editor smiled when he read that)
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The Internet, and Obama’s comments were absent Sunday from state media but circulated in social media, where they were widely praised.
Hey, newsrooms have to make choices -- or so I am told.
‘‘I was very impressed by her speech mentioning freedom of speech,’’ said Zhang Lifan, an independent historian who said he had read about it in overseas Chinese media. ‘‘Although the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech, Chinese citizens don’t really enjoy that right. I think she just reminded China in a polite and mild way that not allowing freedom of speech is not conducive to China.’’
Good thing she is wearing a suit of armor.
We heave freedom of speech in AmeriKa; the problem is our government no longer listens.
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Time to Locke down this post.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Nothing on what Mich and the gals were up to today.
"China urges halt to cyberspying" | New York Times March 25, 2014
BEIJING — The Chinese government called on the United States on Monday to explain its actions and halt the practice of cyberespionage, after news reports said that the National Security Agency had hacked its way into the computer systems of China’s largest telecommunications company.
The reports, based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former security contractor, related how the spy agency penetrated servers owned by the company, Huawei, and monitored communications by its senior executives in an effort to discover whether the executives had links to the Chinese military.
Yeah, but you see, when the AmeriKan empire hacks someone its all for the good. The other thing this does is make you realize all the hacking is self-inflicted stuff for the obvious and regular rea$ons. Tech security makes a bundle, government gets to crack down more, and they still can't find the Target hackers from the Jewish mafia in Eastern Europe. $tart connecting the dots and doing the math.
The operation also sought to exploit the company’s technology and gain access to the communications of customers who use Huawei cellphones, fiber optic cables, and network hubs.
That would be like China collecting all the Google, Facebook, Verizon, pick your telecom, records, folks. If that were truly happening wouldn't the war paper be screaming about it?
US officials have been working to block Huawei from entering the US telecommunications market because of concerns that its equipment could provide Chinese hackers with a “back door” for stealing US corporate and government secrets.
The arrogance of this government and its mouthpiece, 'eh? I mean, it's okay if we collect every communication and movement on the planet, but you wanting to do it to us, well, harrumph, harrumph.
Huawei, founded by a former People’s Liberation Army engineer, has been largely frozen out of North America despite the company’s insistence that it is independent of the Chinese government. The documents did not reveal whether the US spy agency had found evidence that Huawei was less independent than it asserts. Answer: they did not because there is none; otherwise, the war paper mouthpiece would be screaming about it.
The news reports were published Saturday by The New York Times and Der Spiegel.
A Slow Saturday, if you will!
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Chinese being remarkably unemotional about all this after Lockeing down on the ambassador. Returned to their stereotypical stoic calm, right?
I'm wondering what other US assets could be employed to disrupt the Chinese.
"58 arrested, 137 injured in Taiwan during protest of trade pact with China" | Associated Press March 25, 2014
TAIPEI — Baton-wielding riot police on Monday cleared Taiwan’s Cabinet offices of scores of angry protesters opposed to a trade pact with China, escalating tensions over the island’s rapidly developing ties with the communist mainland.
Uh-huh.
Authorities said they arrested 58 protesters and 137 were injured, including 24 that were hospitalized. The crackdown came five days after mainly student demonstrators occupied the nearby Legislature to protest the ruling party’s decision to renege on a promised line-by-line review of the trade agreement.
Occupy Taiwan?
Political protests in Taiwan are common, but violent confrontations relatively rare, reflecting the high level of civil discourse resulting from the transition from one-party dictatorship to robust democracy in the mid-1990s.
The protests have been mostly peaceful, attracting tens of thousands of supporters to the government center.
Oh, good kids all, huh? Much better than the smelly, stinky, criminal harboring, homeless encampment run by those rotten and spooled AmeriKan kids.
China’s government has not commented on the protests, although an editorial Monday in the official newspaper Global Times was harshly critical.
‘‘The Taiwanese students lack the courage and determination to commit to regional economic integration, fear losing out and change and only wish to defend the status quo,’’ the editorial read, contrasting Taiwan’s hesitation with South Korea’s embrace of the Chinese economy.
Early Sunday, Ma rejected protester demands to shelve the trade pact, which would open dozens of service sector industries to Chinese investment. It was signed in June by representatives from Taipei and Beijing, but still awaits ratification by Taiwan’s Legislature.
Ma said that rejecting the pact now would undermine Taiwan’s credibility and harm its economy, which has become increasingly tied to Chinese markets.
And yet I'm told day after day it is the rest of the world that is isolated.
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