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POPSWebsite for Nerds Well they may be nerds, but I am nosey and a clipper. This site has a lot of info, with a lot of traffic. The comments alone are for each article reaches in the 100's...so somebody must know something... :)
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POPSElderly women sentenced to 're-education' in China Living peacefully in China for over 70 years still will not allow you to ask for permission to protest over the government taking their homes away from them. Police set up protest zones in an apparent attempt to allow protest, or was it just a ruse to bring out would-be protesters so China could jail them?
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POPSElderly Chinese Women Ordered into Re-Education After Protest Applications Are Ignored It is the toughest penalty to be reported against any of those who followed up a government announcement that it would allow protests in three Beijing parks during the August 8-24 Olympics. So far, the police said they have received 77 applications and none has been approved. On August 17, the two elderly women each received a document from the city authorities ordering them to serve one year of re-education through labour – an administrative punishment that does not require any judicial process – from July 30 this year to July 29, 2009 for “disturbing public order”. Li Xuehui, son of of Mrs Wu, said: ”Wang Xiuying is almost blind and crippled. What sort of re-education through labour can she serve? But they can also be taken away at any time.” The two women had remained at home but were under observation of a neighbourhood watch group, he said…
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POPSWhat Olympics leave behind: Police State 2.0 US companies, formerly forbidden from selling police tech to China, equipped 660 Chinese cities with spycam networks, under the guise of Olympics security. They'll find their real use after the Games move on.
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POPSFree TIBET! 'nuff said. Kathmandu cops kick and beat Tibetan protesters after locking them in a police van. The prisoners were accused of storming the Chinese consular office in the Nepalese capital.
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POPSSaudi Arabia bans sale of dogs, cats in capital This reminds me of the old joke, "Why do Baptists disapprove of sex? It could lead to dancing." This is an example of religious governance leading to interference in what should be totally secular areas of life. Of course we in the west pamper and coddle our pets, and often react with revulsion at the notion that there are places in the world where dogs are food animals. It's slightly more understandable in the case of dogs, because Islam considers them unclean, but that doesn't explain the ban on cats as well. The story about the Chinese emperor who cut the sleeve from a priceless robe rather than disturb his sleeping kitten has also been told about Mohammed. The article also fails to explain why the law applies only to men. If they realized that by allowing women to own pets, they have a privelege men don't, the entire fabric of Saudi society could come unraveled.
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POPSOlympics protests Quite a spectacle--Martial law and fireworks, fabulous opening ceremonies and billy clubs on heads...Saw Preznit Bush tryin to ive the Women's softball team coch some advice or just commenting, slumming, whatever...the poor guy was holdin his nose and turnin away from Chimpy, who thinks he's cool in his baseball cap and failed experience as a team owner. Bush looked embarrassed and Coach looked disgusted...
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POPSATTENTION ALL CLIPPERS IN BEIJING! As you many of you may know, and as the rest of you can now see, I live here in Beijing. I know the city like the back of my hand. (which is to say, better than I know my feet, but not quite as well as I know my chin.) So if any of you are in town for the Olympics, drop me a line at austininchina@hotmail.com and I can give you advice on anything from where to find the oldest temple or $1 Jager Shots, or the best Cassoulet in town. I can also help you get past those pesky Chinese internet censors. Also, although I'm being worked like a slave, if our schedules match up, I'm always up for a BEER.
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POPSChina Using Olympics As ‘Pretext’ For Crackdown: Amnesty
“Authorities have used the Olympic Games as a pretext to continue and in some respects, intensify existing policies and practices that have led to serious and widespread violations of human rights,” the report added. It listed a series of recommendations urging China to: * release all prisoners of conscience; * stop police arbitrarily detaining activists and dissenters; * impose a moratorium on the death penalty; * allow complete media freedom; and * account for those killed or detained in Tibet. “It is very disturbing that Chinese authorities have indulged in such a big crackdown on the activists,” Mark Allison, China researcher for Amnesty, told AFP. “These are people who represent many many more people in China.” Officials were also extending the use of punitive administrative detention, notably of activists and petitioners as well as beggars and peddlers, Amnesty said. In January, Beijing police launched a campaign against “illegal activ
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POPSEnglish language in the future In China, this sort of free-form adoption of English is helped along by a shortage of native English-speaking teachers, who are hard to keep happy in rural areas for long stretches of time. An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese.