International Comm & Culture 2009

   Jia said in a letter to festival organizers that the Urumqi riot had caused many deaths and many people believed the WUC headed by Rebiya Kadeer had unavoidable responsibility for the violence

 "However, the Melbourne film festival organizers have turned it into a political drama by inviting Rebiya Kadeer, a political liar," he said.

U.S. officials denied late Tuesday night that any apology was offered.

Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists," KCNA reported.

North Korea had long made it clear that it expected a high-profile visit on behalf of the journalists, but Gore may not have been acceptable because he was viewed as their boss and thus not an appropriate symbol of the United States.

What has Ji been charged with? For wanting to protest? For being a regime critic? For seeking to harm China's national image at a time -- the Beijing Olympics -- when preserving its image was paramount?

It also exposes how naïve and deceitful it was for the IOC to have claimed that China would open itself up for the Olympic Games, and that the games would open up China.

In fact, it is so laughable that one could almost presume that the IOC was in league with the government and party leadership in Beijing from the start and consistently kept both eyes tightly shut

They had no case. No crime had been committed, not even a minor offence

make access to digital content an easy and fair game

Many Americans have heard of guanxi, but it's often translated wrongly to mean relationships with powerful people

Guanxi means something very different from the American concept of connections.

It means being in a social circle where you can let your guard down a little, because there is deep trust, perhaps from generations of coexistence, living in the same neighborhoods or even with interwoven family relations.

Long-term perspective is very important in China. A defaulting borrower should avoid saying he won't pay and instead pay a little right away and explain that he is hurting but will make good in the future. You cannot rely on bankruptcy to absolve debts.

ou need to know that relying on the law to avoid making payments to Chinese businesses doesn't usually work

To be successful long term, your company must have strong contracts and good legal advice, but it also needs to understand the importance of relationships, and nurture those as well.

the documentary The 10 Conditions of Love, about Ms Kadeer

Ms Kadeer will take part in the screening of the documentary next Saturday.She will also meet members of Australia’s 2000-strong Uighur community.

Her involvement in the festival led to seven Chinese-language films — from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan — being withdrawn.

‘‘This latest attack is just extraordinary,’’ the festival director said. ‘‘What’s happened is that this has become a question of Chinese nationalism where it has almost become people’s official duty to register a protest.’’

Loach's

The role of political actors, and the nation state in particular, in the film industry is enormous.

the film appears as the product of an individual visionary. This view of filmmaking is about as realistic as the standard Hollywood happy ending. The reality is that films are rarely, if ever, the personal, unadulterated vision of a director. They are influenced or, depending on your point of view, compromised from the start by those who bankroll the films.

what gets far less attention is the extensive role played by political actors in the filmmaking process.

In some respects, the most surprising thing about these kerfuffles is not that they have happened, but that they don't happen more often. While most of us think of film festivals as cultural events, the truth is that they are also deeply political events.

most films would not be made were it not for generous state subsidies.

And in spite of nice-sounding claims about facilitating cultural dialogue, nation states don't fund films because they love a good story. They do so because film can be a highly effective means of spreading influence. Since they're footing the bill, it's understandable that they want a say in the content of the film and how it is positioned.

films and film festivals are the continuation of politics by other means. It shouldn't be imagined that this applies only to authoritarian states such as China or political organisations with clear political objectives. Nearly every Australian film is made with some public money, and so filmmakers are subject to similar, if far more sophisticated and subtle, forms of state influence.

China has miscalculated the extent of its reach and, in the process, provided both the Kadeer documentary and the film festival an avalanche of publicity. And Ken Loach, in remarkably poor political judgment, has effectively silenced himself by withdrawing his film.

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.

"It's a very, very concerted and pointed attack," Mr Moore said. "Everyone's watching this - it's totally global." The email provides instructions for loading tickets into "shopping carts" from the festival's website, and Chinese are being urged to teach others how to "purchase" MIFF tickets online.

"We need to understand different cultures and perspectives as part of how we do business and relate," says Mr Campbell. "So there's actually a public good in all of this."

more than 10 percent of the country’s young people are “addicted” to the Internet

the definition includes children who spend more than six hours a day staring at a computer screen while avoiding sleep, social interaction and schoolwork

70 percent of all juvenile crimes were “induced by Internet addiction

Whether it is religion, environmentalism or nonprofit charities, the Chinese government has always been wary of any organized activity it cannot directly control.

Hence Apple -- like Amazon -- reserves the right to remotely meddle with your iPhone at any time and without the consent of the user, in order to delete objectionable applications. All with the best of intentions, of course

A shift to tethered applicances also entails a sea change in the regulability of the Internet" (author's emphasis). The "dangers of excess" will no longer come from viruses or hackers anymore, "but from the much more predictable interventions by regulators

We will need to get used to the fact that these "curious technological hybrids" will never fully belong to us -- even if we have paid a lot of money for them.

The Google idea is fantastic. But you can only do so much with text. It's very good for transactions, but it is very poor for brands.

The online economy is about the size of the German economy. And it's based on a default price of zero. Most things online are available in a free form. We have never seen an economy this big with a default price of zero. I realized that we needed an economic model to explain how an economy could be based on "free." And we need to understand the psychology of that. We have the psychology of free, we're drawn to it, but we feel cheated by it. If something used to be paid for and then it becomes free, we think the quality is lower. But if something has always been free, and remains free, we don't think that.