As with many others, I found myself a bit curious about the new "Google" of China, created by the Xinhua news agency and China Mobile, both arms of the Chinese government. So I decided to break this puppy in, and see just how far I could get with it...

I CAN predict when SA's "Tunisia Day" will arrive. Tunisia Day is when the masses rise against the powers that be, as happened recently in Tunisia. The year will be 2020, give or take a couple of years. The year 2020 is when China estimates that its current minerals-intensive industrialisation phase will be concluded.

For SA, this will mean the African National Congress (ANC) government will have to cut back on social grants, which it uses to placate the black poor and to get their votes. China's current industrialisation phase has forced up the prices of SA's minerals, which has enabled the government to finance social welfare programmes.

Postulate: Over time, democracy always degenerates into authoritarianism.

Fascinating debate about the MSM's power or lack thereof over the outcome of the revolution on the streets of Cairo....

Perhaps we should listen to more of what the "real socialists" have to say.... What do you think?

A rather unbiased piece (though tipped off in the end) by a "real socialist" (not your animus Obamacreation that you keep dreaming up around every left-leaning corner in DC today) about the facts on the ground & what you should know about the Egyptian revolution: that it's "a mas …

China has limited coverage of the Egypt protest to its Xinhua news service and warned last week that websites that did not censor comments about Egypt would be 'shut down by force.'

"In January, the Western world will welcome a new nation, South Sudan. The Islamic world will not. The coming independence of South Sudan, which holds most of the oil in the country now called Sudan, marks a loss of territory and of wealth for the Islamic world.

It's happening all over the country. Union workers in both the public and private sectors have a target on their backs. Politicians are taking aim, determined to destroy the last remaining force dedicated to working people: the labor movement.

If further evidence is needed that the United Nations is a complete basket case in the arena of human rights, look no further than the world body's decision to stay away from this Friday's Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo.The United Nations' chief human rights official has decl …

SECURITY ISSUES
-----------------

¶5. (S/REL to USA, FVEY) Threats: Olympics Possible Target for East Turkestan Groups: Tearline information indicates that, "According to a Chinese intelligence officer in early July 2008, al-Qa'ida second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri has tasked former East Turkestan terrorists to travel to China to conduct terrorist attacks at the Olympics. Potential targets include: the U.S. President and Secretary of State; the UK Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary; the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies; the cities of Shanghai and Hong Kong; Olympic programs; and VIP tourists. The terrorists are apparently bomb-making experts and may carry micro bomb-making material in plastic products, jewelry, and crystal ornaments across the border with them. According to the Chinese intelligence officer, al-Qa'ida and East Turkestan terrorist groups would have different targets, with East Turkestan groups primarily targeting Olympic facilities and landmarks and not targeting U.S. VIPs or the U.S. Embassy." The same source previously cited information from July indicating a threat to the U.S. and Afghan Presidents during the Olympics Opening Ceremony (ref. b). [Source removed]

"On the back of a recent issue of Rolling Stone, I saw a Louis Vuitton ad featuring Bono and his wife Ali Hewson promoting something or the other having to do with Africa.

Concern over TSA Regulations:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

¶9. (SBU) Prince Torki noted he had been instructed to raise Saudi Arabia's significant concern about the TSA regulations which had included Saudi Arabia in a limited group of countries for additional airport screening. Prince Torki said that this issue had caused a lot of difficulties and embarrassment for Saudi Arabia, to the degree that Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal will raise this with the Secretary in London on January 27. Prince Torki said that Saudi Arabia was not upset about the regulation itself, as it recognized the U.S. right and obligation to protect its citizens. The issue, rather, was inclusion on the list with the likes of Cuba, which causes Saudi Arabia's friends and enemies to question how strong its bilateral relationship with the United States really is. Prince Torki said it is very hard to explain to the Saudi public why they are included on this list, despite not being the origin of the December 25 flight, while other countries that have had recent terrorist incidents on planes, like the UK, Egypt and Turkey, are not. Prince Torki said that Saudi Arabia had been shocked to be included on the list. He noted that Saudi Arabia had been told these provisions would only be temporary, and said Saudi Arabia would like to know how and when they will be amended, implying that the longer they remained in effect without any public explanation from the USG, the more it was likely to prompt the Saudi Government to re-evaluate areas of cooperation, including counter-terrorism cooperation. A/S Feltman promised to convey the spirit and strength of the message, and invited any specific Saudi suggestions to address the security gap regarding nonmetallic explosives exploited in the December 25 incident.

A pregnant woman in south China was detained, beaten and forced to have an abortion just a month before her due date because the baby would have violated the country's one-child limit, her husband said Thursday.

The arrival of a new Middle East player startled Washington and Jerusalem Military sources disclose that when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan met Syrian president Bashar Assad in Damascus Monday, Oct.

"This post features the bitter lives of snail houses of Chinese men and women from different areas of China. Take a look at the photos of these snail houses in China.

" A woman celebrating the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident has been charged with assault for accidentally splashing champagne on a security guard outside the Chinese central government's liaison office in Hong Kong.

The work of "body fishers" has received increased attention in Chinese media lately,

Three families in the central province of Hubei said earlier this month that their daughters grew breasts after drinking formula made by Synutra.

Chinese security forces fired indiscriminately on Tibetan protesters in 2008 and beat and kicked others until they lay motionless on the ground, a rights group said in a report detailing unrest that the government says it suppressed legally.

The government calls it "sealed management." China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control.

Amnesty International has challenged the official Chinese version of events in Xinjiang a year ago, when nearly 200 people were killed in ethnic clashes.

Job advertisements in China can throw up a few surprises for those used to a non-discriminatory employment environment. Here, companies make no apologies about openly stating the race of the employees they seek. And like it or not, the desired skin colour is often white.

Yet, amid all the fanfare and celebrations this week, there was one sour, niggling note: reports of a spate of suicides at a secretive Chinese complex where Jobs's iPhone, iPod and iPad - Apple's new state-of-the-art slimline computer - are built and assembled. With 11 workers t …

"There is a cardiac ward in a hospital in Tel Aviv where children lie on cots as doctors and nurses check charts and adjust advanced medical equipment. It is busy here.

They were members of a modern-day swingers' club in China, where people met online and then gathered in homes or hotels for group sex parties involving dozens of men and women.

Last month, Ma Yaohai, a 53-year-old college professor and 21 others went on trial in the southeastern city of Nanjing, accused of "group licentiousness" - the first time anyone has been charged under a 1997 law in a case that has snagged huge public interest with its titillating details.

Girls at the brothel were beaten and raped. Many were dying of AIDS. Who were their customers? All kind of foreigners. Americans. Thai. Vietnamese. Cambodian.

3000s BCE – The Royal Archives of China hold the earliest written record of an abortion technique.

Mona Eltahawy is a well known Egyptian writer and human rights activist.

BEIJING — China's government censors have taken fresh aim at the Internet, rolling out new measures that limit its citizens' ability to set up personal Web sites and to view hundreds of Web sites offering films, video games and other forms of entertainment.

In my Media Guardian column this Monday, I suggest that we need a bill of rights in cyberspace as a set of amendments to John Perry Barlow's 1996 Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.