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Lucy Rechnitzer

Fairfax, News to charge for online - 0 views

  • Fairfax, News to charge for online Tom Hyland August 9, 2009 THE loyalty of readers accustomed to getting their news online free is about to be tested, as Australia's largest newspaper groups prepare to charge for access to their websites.Fairfax Media is considering two levels of access, one free and the other incurring a charge, as newspapers move to protect declining revenues.Last week, News Limited chief executive Rupert Murdoch announced that sites featuring the news content of his stable of papers would no longer be free.The plan to erect pay-walls around their online sites comes as newspaper companies confront a decline in the advertising revenue that has financed print production.
  • Monetisation will have to happen, because without monetisation of the online sites that the newspaper industries have operated very successfully, we can't afford to keep the big newsroom staffs we have,'' he said.Fairfax was looking at a number of pay models, including offering readers two levels of access - free entry for a mass audience, with a charge for ''more upmarket, high quality data''.
  • The move is a risk for both publishers, which are gambling on readers being prepared to pay for news they have been receiving free - and will remain free on sources such as the ABC.While newspaper websites carry advertising, they do not finance the news content, most of which comes from the papers
Tony Sullivan

Background Briefing - 5 July 2009 - Cairo, a divided city - 0 views

  • Cairo
  • Mr Berry: When you walk in the gate it's nice. It gives you the impression that maybe you have a place in Australia maybe, maybe it feels like you in Australia, maybe somebody else, OK, maybe in Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else in the world, maybe in Italy, maybe somebody has the same feeling like Oh, this looks somewhere in Rome, somewhere in Greece
    • Tony Sullivan
       
      Describes 'gated communities' for the affluent, being established in desert areas beyond the border of Cairo city.
  • Mr Berry: Golf, it's a very prestigious thing.
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  • Not everyone back in Cairo is happy about the obsession with golf courses. Professor of Landscape and Architecture at Cairo University, Mohammad Refaat says they are a status symbol and the game doesn't come naturally to Egyptians
  • Mohammad Refaat: The first golf course that was created in these new developments was in Katameya Heights. It started - why is that? Because we started to have the Japanese in Egypt. The Japanese, they love golf, and we have several firms with Japanese managers, so it became a luxury to provide the service for them. But I believe that we're never going to be golfers as Egyptians, and I don't know, it's irritating now, because whenever you go, whenever you get a project, even in my private office, they say, 'Ah, the golf', and then we start doing the compound. The main idea of the golf from the owners' point of view is that to provide value for the people so that he can start to sell.
  • Mohammad Refaat: The thing is that I feel that we are Westernising ourselves. The thing is that due to the effect of the media, everybody wants to live in a Dallas, or in a Falconcrest or one of these things that we used to see when we're kids.
  • And they did not understand the Egyptian culture. If I speak about myself, I'd rather live in what we call the hara, or the alley, the old alley that we have, you know, when you have people all living in one street, of having all the services in the street, what we call the philosophy of the extended family. This is very, very Egyptian.
  • Anwar Sadat
  • opened up the country to the world, and very significantly, for the first time, all Egyptians could travel overseas.
  • Egyptians from all classes went abroad to get jobs in Gulf countries. They came back with money and with an appetite for things like shopping and luxury living. Some also brought back new ideas about Islam. It was more conservative and fundamentalist.
  • teachers, engineers, medical doctors, peasants, the large peasant migration
  • get passports, go and work in Jordan, in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, come back. Some of them also in Saudi Arabia perhaps never ever encountering women, right? And coming back with new notions of segregation, of headscarf, of Islamisation
  • Hagar Cohen: In Cairo today more and more women are segregated and wear the burqa, which is the full head and body cover. But everyone likes the shopping, and the new and glitzy malls are full of people in all kinds of dress
  • It can be uncomfortable now for women in western clothes, who don't wear scarves, because conservative men and women clearly show their distaste. This mix between consumerism and a very religious lifestyle is sometimes known as 'petro Islam'
  • Mona Abaza: They have different notions and variations of Islamic ideologies. There is a difference between a 16-year-old kid who is out of a family of 10 living in a slum, and a schoolteacher who lives long years in Saudi Arabia comes back, very much influenced by what I call the petro Islamic ideology, Saudi Arabian consumerists, very much into conservative accommodationist kind of religion, enjoying a shopping mall but at the same time dressing in Islamic code for instance. So marrying certain forms of consumer culture, but giving it a flavour that can look Egyptian, so that you convince yourself that you are different.
    • Tony Sullivan
       
      Also discussed in relation to Salafism, a quietist social current encouraged by Saudi Araba, in 'The fever under the surface', The Economist 25 July 2009, p11-12, part of a special report on the Middle East.
  • the gated communities inside. the more upmarket, the faster they're selling, and they have names like Beverley Hills, Hyde Park and Dreamland.
  • Another kind of cultural reference for all of this is old Egyptian movies from like the 1950s you know, black-and-white films, where the setting was very, very often the Pasha's villa, which always had a very grand staircase, and a very grand entrance. This is the sort of lifestyle that Egyptians haven't had access to since the 1950s because of the crowding and so on and so forth. So now it's sort of become a lifestyle option for wealthy Egyptians that wasn't really there. So you can now have your own Pasha's villa.
  • Hagar Cohen: Dina Hussanein says she isn't comfortable living in a place with a name like 'Beverly Hills'. Dina Hassanein: That's a very sad thing, because we have a remarkable history and civilisation and yet, you know, we can't think of any Arabic word of our own that we could use to name the places. So I can tell you, Beverly Hills Egypt is nothing like Beverly Hills California
  • Hagar Cohen: Dina Hassanein is a modern woman. She lives on her own, and has a fiancĂ© who lives nearby. She is very beautiful and smartly dressed in Western clothes. She has a job which involves interaction with all sorts of people
  • Hagar Cohen: Dina Hassanein and other residents have to rely on Old Cairo for almost everything, including shops, restaurants, and health services. There are also no local street markets, little shops or stalls, or workshops. In some places, the rules even forbid them. Big supermarket chains can be found easily, but you have to drive to get to them
  • Said Sadek: And you have rulers who believe in gated communities. Mubarak himself, lives in Sharem el Sheik or Borg el Arab, isolated, always isolated. The ruling elite in Egypt are isolated. And so you can tell by this political orientation of the elite that this is what they want, an isolated community because they cannot meet the demands of the masses. There are 40% of Egyptians below poverty line, earning less than $2 a day. And so this abject poverty amidst people who have a lot of money, may drive people to be envious
  • Very poor quality housing found in slums and shanty towns is expanding in Cairo
  • r Cohen: What in terms of sewage and garbage services? Are they available? Manal Tibe: We are talking about no water, so don't talk about sewage and garbage
  • Hagar Cohen: Manal Tibe says that the government isn't doing anything to improve conditions in slums, but has been very generous to private developers of gated communities. The desert land is subsidised by the government as well as the price of fuel, electricity and water. And that makes expenses in gated communities very low.
  • Manal Tibe: More hatefulness from poor to rich people and also to the government. Now, poor people that they want revenge, and this is being interpreted in some crimes against rich people.
  • Hagar Cohen: Dina Hassanein is missing city life, but at the same time she says that she doesn't fit in there any more
  • Dina Hassanein: It's not that I don't want to live there, it's just that our realities are very different, the places that we go are very different. If I were to walk into a slum I might get torn apart. You can't just walk in wearing normal clothes like we do into a place like that. I can barely walk down the streets without getting harassed actually, because it's a much more conservative society, so it's just different, it's almost impossible for these worlds to intermingle.
  • Hagar Cohen: These two very different worlds are on display inside some of Cairo's shopping malls. Western music there is piped through just as it is in any Australian city. This shopping mall is in the suburb of Giza. It's one of the most exclusive ones in Cairo. There's a care there serving Caesar salads and cappuccinos. Just across the road is the Giza Zoo, which is a popular hanging out venue for poorer families
  • This shopping mall
  • It's only a few days before Christmas when we're here, and in this Muslim country, it's ironic that Christian carols are playing throughout the atrium. Mona Abaza: It's a mix of definitely well-to-do Egyptians, and lots of expatriates, foreigners coming. You can see the Christmas decoration. During Ramadan they make Ramadan decorations, tents and Islamic style, and in Christmas they put Christmas decorations
  • Mona Abaza: There is this idea that the old downtown city is now slowly being depopulated by its, let us say, middle class. It used to be a very important commercial centre. It is now losing out this significance, because the centres have been now little by little moving out. So the idea is to get out of the city, because as if it's the inside is rotten, and it's very interesting how the poor can easily look at the lifestyles of the rich. Now this is evidently a bit of a problem for the rich, so that is why they opted for the American Dream, which is getting out and walling off.
  • Mona Abaza: If you look at it just visually, the problem is slums. One can easily say that the view is that as if the whole of Cairo is consisting of slums. Now the past 20 years, the neo liberal ideology of the government is to try and handle the problem of slums, and the way they handle it is as if it's an evil, a cancer that has to be drastically eliminated, with violence, because they consider and they believe that in slums, that we have the breeding of terrorist ideology, Islamist, poverty, violence etc. Now all this is quite often very over-exaggerated. I mean it's a form of discriminating the poor, that's clear. But you have the issue also of the city now experiencing a new form of cleaning up geared towards of course the encouraging of tourism and sites of consumption. So the cityscape is taking place as a huge space for consumer culture and tourism
  • Hagar Cohen: The American University, where Professor Abaza lectures, has also moved out to the desert and is now based in a town called New Cairo. She says it's a bad move, because a whole generation of well-off young people will be isolated, away from historical Cairo or the old Egyptian culture
  • Mona Abaza: You might be astonished but my students, 18 years old, 19 years, have never for instance known anything about downtown, have never even gone to downtown.
  • You will find the American fast food and the Egyptian fast food, and Italian, Mexican. Upstairs there is a McDonald's and Kentucky
  • Towheid Wahab: There is a rule here in the University. There's no mosque, there's no church, there's no temple, there's no monastery. All the people here are equal to do their religion by their own
  • Max Roderbeck: There are good reasons why they want to move, because you get a nice amount of space, you can re-brand yourself with a new image of being something that looks very modern instead of something that's fitted into a shabby old neighbourhood. There's certainly a trend, I mean there are quite a lot of institutions that have moved out.
  • Max Roderbeck: The danger of Cairo being hollowed out is pretty real. And I mean, some of the things that a city needs to be vibrant, seem to be already been pulled out of the centre of Cairo. I've seen other places where downtown becomes either a hollow shell, or ends up just being a sort of transport hub, you know, a sort of junction of roads and things. And I think it's a very real danger with Cairo.
  • Hagar Cohen: Somehow, Cairo has always managed to function as a lively city, says Max Roderbeck, but this time around, things are different
  • These satellite towns were developed in this way because of the government's quick sale of the land to private hands. They wanted to make a return quickly, and big villas and golf courses were in demand. But they don't work as lively urban centres, says environmental architect, Abbas el Zafarany
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    The complexities of globalisation evident in Egypt's largest city and its surrounds
fiona hou

Economic recovery could be bad news for Germany - Telegraph Blogs - 0 views

  • News that Germany and France have, with a mini-bound, escaped recession must be the most ominous development of the week.
  • For those within this system, Germany had been an extremely comfortable place until the downturn. But the apparent failure of its export-driven social model changed all that. As a result, Germans had begun to campaign for a responsive political system.
  • In all sorts of ways,  Germans had begun to realise that the economy - and thence German society - had reached the end of the post-war path. The worry is that today’s GDP figures will drive them back to the old, familiar way of thinking.
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    News that Germany and France have, with a mini-bound, escaped recession must be the most ominous development of the week. Though it has always proved a mirage in the past, the possibility of change had appeared to be taking hold in Germany.
amy wu

Wikipedia Testing New Editing Restrictions - 0 views

  • Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that has increasingly drawn some decidedly juvenile pranks, is looking to impose more discipline with new restrictions on the editing of articles.
  • The latest changes come as Wikipedia continues trying to balance a need for credibility and a desire for openness.
  • The idea is to block the kind of high-profile vandalism that has marred some pages.
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  • The same flagging process, for example, has been imposed on all entries in the German-language Wikipedia for more than a year.
  • Some believe Wikipedia must continue tightening editing policies if it wants to gain credibility.
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    Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that has increasingly drawn some decidedly juvenile pranks, is looking to impose more discipline with new restrictions on the editing of articles.
xinning ji

BBC NEWS | South Asia | A new India emerges at the movies - 0 views

  • Western filmmakers are increasingly tapping India for inspiration and locations and perceiving it in a new light.
  • The film raises many ethical and emotional questions without being judgmental.
  • Indeed, regeneration, spiritual and otherwise, seems to be the new buzzword driving the Western gaze on India.
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  • With the culturally condescending, poverty-fixated, clichĂ©-ridden Western vision of a populous nation of a million contradictions undergoing marked dilution, a new India is beginning to emerge in the cinema of the world.
Nadeem Uddin

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Slumdog child actors in new movie - 0 views

  • The child stars of the hit film Slumdog Millionaire are set to star in another film, possibly sharing a screen with British actor Anthony Hopkins.
  • "Lord Owen's Lady".
  • The children and their families recently moved to new housing. The accommodation was arranged by the government and a trust formed by Slumdog's British director Danny Boyle.
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  • We have been given a new house and our condition is improving but Azhar's father did not live to see the good days,"
  • I will do it if my parents ask me to do it. I had a good time acting in the previous film. I would like to act in this new film also
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    Bollywood meets Hollywood
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    he is a lucky slumdog child. I like that movie after I watched it. I found it is not easy to a person from a poor man to be rich. Also he has to make an hard effort to fulfil the dream. so best wishes to Azhar.
Rika Ninomiya

Taking a closer look at Indonesia | The Australian - 0 views

    • Rika Ninomiya
       
      Indonesian Film Festival in Melbourne starts on 11 August and will ends on 20 August 2009. For more information visit http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=97320061286&ref=search Some of the films are really interesting and worth watching :)
  • WHAT do most Australians know about Indonesian art? What role do the arts play in the picture they present of contemporary Indonesia? Not much, perhaps.
  • We heard from a young Indonesian filmmaker about thriving, youthful film communities across Indonesia and among Indonesian students in Melbourne; we shared some of the songs, stories and images collected by an Australian artist from northern Australian and eastern Indonesian communities once linked by ocean trade; we saw gigantic puppets created by young earthquake survivors near Yogyakarta, performing a zany new version of the Ramayana legend under the inspired leadership of Ian Pidd and the Snuff Puppet group.
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  • So why don’t Australians know more about Indonesian arts? Why don’t our arts and film festivals abound with Indonesian entries, and our television screens with Indonesian street murals and touring rock groups?
  • So what can be done? First, we need a big new initiative from the Australian Government that would attract attention in both countries. And perhaps we should establish one or more Australian-Indonesian cultural centres and arts spaces in Indonesian cities, to showcase existing arts exchanges and encourage others. Several European countries already maintain such centres: we’d need to do something distinctive and new.
  • Back in Australia, Indonesian arts aficionados could form a strategic network, sharing information about what’s on, lobbying festivals, arts promoters, the media and government bodies.
  • We can try to make sure that next time the rock band Dewa 19 visits, its songs about Islamic love and inclusiveness reach not only rapt Indonesian students and residents, but the thousands of Australians who need to hear the message.
  • Pressure should be put on SBS to show the film Opera Jawa, whose director, Garin Nugroho, has been described by Peter Sellars as a new Ingmar Bergman or Michelangelo Antonioni. We should also urge the big festivals to stage Je.jal.an (The Street ) by theatre group Garasi, in which violent, hilarious and moving interactions on a teeming city street graphically symbolise the confusion and creativity of contemporary Indonesia.
  • We need to keep spreading the word, while hopefully sustaining our spirits with more celebratory get-togethers in the same vein as Asialink’s Indonesia Calling.
  •  
    Indonesian Film Festival in Melbourne starts on 11 August and will ends on 20 August 2009. For more information visit http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=97320061286&ref=search Some of the films are really interesting and worth watching :)
Lucy Rechnitzer

Murdoch to charge for online news - 0 views

  • A comment thread attached to a report about the announcement contained about 140 replies from readers – most of then opposed to the move and many of them threatening to quit News Corp websites when charges are applied.
  • "'Quality reporting does not come cheap.' I agree," reads a comment posted by Dean of Brisbane. "But we are talking about News Corp here - not quality reporting. I currently pay exactly what I think it is worth - FREE."
Nadeem Uddin

'Viagra cream' could prove safer - 0 views

  •  
    'Viagra cream' could prove safer\nViagra\nSide-effects can include headaches, blurred vision and upset stomach\n\nA cream allowing erectile dysfunction drugs to be applied directly to the skin could one day make them safer to use, say New York scientists.\n\nStudies in rats suggest that Viagra, Levitra and Cialis could pass through the skin in tiny capsules, they say.\n\nThe research, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, could mean fewer side-effects, and even significantly speed up the drug's action.\n\nHowever, it could be a decade before creams are fully ready for use.\n\nThe arrival of erectile dysfunction treatments in tablet form has been one of the success stories of the modern pharmaceutical industry, with some estimates suggesting that tens of millions of men worldwide have used them.\n\nHowever, although they have worked for many men, they also carry the risk of side-effects such as headaches, blurred vision or upset stomachs.\n\nIn addition, men with severe heart problems, or who have just suffered a stroke, are advised to avoid the tablets altogether or use them with extreme caution.\n\nLess risk\n\nFor many, this could be solved by the development of the cream, with would confine more of the active ingredients of the drug to a single area of the body, rather than circulating them widely.\n \nThe response time to the nanoparticles was very short, just a few minutes, which is basically what people want in an erectile dysfunction medication\nDr Kelvin Davies\nStudy author\n\nThe research team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, in New York, used nanoparticles, each much smaller than a grain of pollen, and found a way to encapsulate particles of the drug inside.\n\nTheir early tests involved just a few rats bred to have erectile dysfunction later in life.\n\nOf these, 11 were treated with nanoparticles containing Cialis, a newer erectile dysfunction drug called sialorphin, and nitric oxide, a chemical also needed to wid
anonymous

Shaping New Regional Governance in East Asia: A Common Vision for Mutual Benefit and Co... - 0 views

  •  
    Shaping New Regional Governance in East Asia: A Common Vision for Mutual Benefit and Common Prosperity
  •  
    `A peaceful solution to the Korean problem will be a starting point for common prosperity and mutual benefit in East Asia, where security matters such as the North Korean nuclear issue have long intermingled,'' a news release said. ``Experts in their respective fields will engage in in-depth discussions and deepen mutual understanding, exploring ways to promote peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula as well as in East Asia.'' Anyone knows how John Howard get's to be there? Has he become an adviser of some sort? Would be interesting to see what his take on these things is, and what/who's agenda he presents?
Christoph Zed

BBC NEWS | Business | Emerging economies 'get new role' - 0 views

  • The G20 group of leading and emerging economies will take on a new role as a permanent body co-ordinating the world economy
  • more power to emerging economies, rather than to the developed powerhouses of the G8 group.
  • Senior EU officials later announced a deal to shift the balance of voting in the International Monetary Fund to benefit growing economies like China.
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  • police fired rubber bullets at protesters
  • The G20 is going to be the new body counsel that will be the coordinating body for international economic cooperation
  • financial regulatory reform was the most important agenda item for summit, but that addressing global economic imbalances was also a priority
  • US proposal calls on economies such as China, Brazil and India to boost domestic consumption
  • US and Europe would encourage more saving
  • That's not a sustainable financial situation for the US and that's why we're in the process of adjusting
Andrew Ooi

General election debates: three main news channels reach agreement - Times Online - 0 views

  • Pressure on Gordon Brown to agree to a televised debate between the three party leaders increased when the main news channels proposed a series of debates during the election campaign
  • Negotiations in the build-up to previous elections have been derailed by haggling over the structure of a debate, including the timing of opening speeches, the role of the moderator, and whether questions would be taken unscripted from a studio audience or agreed in advance.
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    A televised debate for UK's elections look more promising as the main news channels have agreed on how the debate will take place.
jung moon

Asia Times Online :: South Asia news - 'Native English' is losing its power - 0 views

  • Even as the English language continues its meteoric global rise, native speakers such as the North Americans, British and Australians will soon become a rare breed, overwhelmed by the many millions who have started speaking English as their second language.
  • the new lingua franca in what is now often called a flat world.
  • "So the balance of power is changing, and when the second-language speakers adopt English language as their own language or as a second language, they actually take control of it, mix it and use it with their own language, developing new forms, vocabulary and ways and using English."
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  • "China now produces over 20 million English speakers each year, and possibly within a few years, there could be more English speakers in China than in India."
  • Graddol's findings predict that by 2015, there will be about 2 billion people from Asia and non-English-speaking Europe learning English.
  • However, that is not necessarily good news for native English speakers. Instead, it could come as a big blow because "they can no longer look the other way, celebrating the rising hegemony of their language".
  • As English becomes more widely used as a global language, it will become expected that speakers will signal their nationality, and other aspects of their identity, through English, Graddol says. Lack of a native-speaker accent will not be seen, therefore, as a sign of poor competence.
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    I hope someday I can speak 'Konglish (Korean English)' in everywhere. :D
glen donnar

Branding Australian cities: pride of place or pointless PR? - Crikey - 0 views

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    Big news in Melbourne today: Mayor Robert Doyle has spent $240,000 on a new logo for the city. But is it any good? We compare and contrast with other city brands from around this wide brown land.
glen donnar

The TV Watch - Ultimate Media Moment - Michael Jackson's Memorial Service - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • most everybody around the world stopped what they were doing — on television, on the Internet and on the street — to look and listen.
  • as the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, showed in 1997, communal sorrow is moving, public frenzy is alarming, but the two together make for irresistible television.
  • Brian Williams of NBC, who sat on a special platform outside the Staples Center, told his colleague Lester Holt that the public had a way of deciding for itself what matters, “despite, at some times, the news media’s better wishes.” He added ruefully, “And this is an event because it is.”
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  • Most anchors tried to define Mr. Jackson’s place in pop culture and American history. His popularity is universal, but his death was commandeered to mark a milestone in African-American history. Nancy Giles, an actress and CBS News commentator, said on MSNBC that he was “a trailblazer in the same way President Obama is.”
  • That homage, as much as the music, was the measure of the event’s success: for at least one day, the Jackson camp managed to take command of the coverage, setting the agenda for the news media as well as the mourners.
glen donnar

Withdrawals lead to program rethink - Film - Entertainment - theage.com.au - 0 views

  • The screening of the documentary The 10 Conditions of Love, about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, has been the cause of controversy ever since the Chinese Government demanded that the film be withdrawn.
  • MIFF refused to withdraw The 10 Conditions of Love. In response, films from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were pulled from the festival, and the MIFF website was hacked.
  • including a short from leading director Jia Zhangke and a film produced by Wong Kar-wai’s Jet Tone company.
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  • The controversy brought a wave of local and international publicity. MIFF has been a fixture in the news pages and on the radio. The overseas coverage included mentions in The New Yorker, a live interview with CNN and coverage on the BBC. The attention, Mr Moore hopes, might have a flow-on effect, a reminder to people that this is an important festival. The festival had already become the subject of news stories when director Ken Loach withdrew his feature film, Looking for Eric, because of MIFF sponsorship by the Israeli Government.
Lucy Rechnitzer

BBC NEWS | Technology | Tech giants unite against Google - 0 views

  • Tech giants unite against Google By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley Not everyone in the coalition wants the deal blocked, some want revisions Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library.Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will sign up to the Open Book Alliance being spearheaded by the Internet Archive. They oppose a legal settlement that could make Google the main source for many online works. "Google is trying to monopolise the library system," the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle told BBC News.
  • Critics have claimed the settlement will transform the future of the book industry and of public access to the cultural heritage of mankind embodied in books. The Internet Archive scans around 1000 books a day at 10 cents a page "The techniques we have built up since the enlightenment of having open access, public support for libraries, lots of different organisational structures, lots of distributed ownership of books that can be exchanged, resold and repackaged in different ways - all of that is being thrown out in this particular approach," warned Mr Kahle. The non-profit Internet Archive has long been a vocal opponent of this agreement. It is also in the business of scanning books and has digitised over half a million of them to date. All are available free. As the 4 September deadline approaches, the number of groups and organisations voicing their opposition is growing. But with three of the world's best-known technology companies joining the chorus, the Open Book Alliance can expect to make headlines the world over.
  • In its defence, Google has argued that the deal brings great benefits to authors and will make millions of out-of-print books widely available online and in libraries. In a statement, the company said: "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."
Wye Keen Wong

Chinese New Year worldwide celebration (2008)l - 0 views

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    An interesting blog post with photos of Chinese New Years celebrations from around the world. A little surprising some of the locations you will find there. Yet I suppose it's also not that surprising when you consider the size of the Chinese Diaspora
Christoph Zed

McCurry wins row with McDonald's - 0 views

  • The American fast-food giant McDonald's has lost an eight-year legal battle to prevent a Malaysian restaurant calling itself McCurry.
  • McDonald's argued that the use of the "Mc" prefix infringed its trademark. But the Federal Court in Kuala Lumpur ruled that there was no evidence to show McCurry was trying to pass itself off as part of the McDonald's empire.
  • The owner of McCurry insists its "Mc" prefix is an abbreviation for Malaysian Chicken Curry.
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    interesting outcome of this 8 year-long legal battle
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    This news is of particular interest to me because I am from Malaysia and when the news broke out in Malaysia, I thought it was hilarious (at the expense of the owner of McCurry and McDonalds). The funny thing thing is there are numerous of eateries or restaurants that sound similar to the American imports, and this not only happens in Malaysia but in other countries as well. For example, there was a fast food fried chicken joint similar to KFC, that is called McDota (I can't remember the exact spelling) in Malaysia quite some time ago. Anyways, I just thought this piece of news is interesting and funny!
xinning ji

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | New hope for China's migrant workers - 0 views

  • Twenty million migrant workers from China's countryside had lost their jobs in factories in the last year, because of the global downturn.
  • The new recruits were needed, he said, because things were starting to pick up. But their key export business had been hit badly.
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