International Comm & Culture 2009

Each of these flavours of English has its own local properties. If you know something about the pronunciation of the languages of these countries, you can often identify the speakers' nationality by their English.

These Englishes can show a variety of errors of grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes this is caused by interference from the homeland language. Sometimes it is just a feature of the local English that has become established

does it really matter? After all, the Australians, the British and the Americans routinely announce "all trains cancelled".

Germany Is World's Third Largest Defense Exporter

Once one of the world's most aggressive powers, Germany today likes to project a pacifist image

a report released yesterday by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), a German think tank, reveals a different side of Germany's relationship to war.

of an American animated movie that's set in ancient China

The blockbuster success

Some viewers have said the only reason China hasn't come out with something similar is a lack of money ("Kung Fu Panda" cost more than $130 million to make; Chinese-produced films tend to cost less than $1.5 million) or animation-technology know-how.

"Facebook has through ignorance created an anti-Semitic policy platform where the only explicitly allowed hate is that, within certain parameters, directed against Jews," the report said.

There's already been a massive reaction to Holocaust denial on Facebook, as seen by the almost 85,000 people around the world who have joined a pressure group called United Against Holocaust Denial, Oboler told the Post.

Muslims in Malaysia have been prohibited from going to a Black Eyed Peas concert that is sponsored by Guinness.

Last week, 32-year-old fashion model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno became the first woman to be publicly canned for drinking alcohol in a hotel lounge in 2008

"Muslims cannot attend. Non-Muslims can go and have fun

This is the San Polo municipal football ground on the outskirts of Brescia - a big industrial city in the north of Italy home to one of the biggest south Asian communities in the country.

The attraction is cricket - the final rounds of a limited overs competition.

"It's not a good place to live", he says. "Most Italians only speak their own language and so - unlike Indians and Pakistanis - they don't mix well with people from other cultures."

Can the U.S. government take a woman's baby from her because she doesn't speak English? That's the latest question to arise in the hothouse debate over illegal immigration

Can the U.S. government take a woman's baby from her because she doesn't speak English? That's the latest question to arise in the hothouse debate over illegal immigration,

Department of Human Services (DHS), which ruled that Baltazar Cruz was an unfit mother in part because her lack of English "placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future."

If they fail in their appeal, Eleanor Katherine may have to leave the only family she has ever known and await adoption by another couple whose religious convictions satisfy the State of New Jersey.

Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue.

Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being

1. Klingon Perhaps the most fully realized science fiction language, Klingon has a complete grammar and vocabulary, permitting countless nerds to learn it like it was high school Spanish. Fans have translated Shakespeare, Sun Tzu and the Bible into the language. There’s a Klingon Language Institute, the purpose of which is to promote the language and culture of this nonexistent people. You can even select Klingon as your language of choice in Google.

it has become almost de rigueur for fiction writers and moviemakers to include a constructed language (conlang) when crafting a new universe. Here are some of the best:

AUSTRALIA’S elite universities are set to pay a high price for the foreign student crisis, as middle-class Indian parents concerned for the safety of their children opt for universities in Britain, New Zealand and North America instead of Australia.

The agents have experienced falls of up to 50 per cent in inquiries by students wanting to study at Australia’s top tertiary institutions since the controversy began.

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.

The move follows reports that training colleges have profited from recruiting hundreds of students into substandard courses as a fast track to gaining permanent residency here.

oday, in China, South Korean missionaries are bringing Christianity with an Asian face. South Korean movies and dramas about urban professionals in Seoul, though not overtly political, present images of modern lives centering on individual happiness and sophisticated consumerism.

Microsoft Corporation is apologising for altering a photo on its website to change the race of one of the people shown in the picture

on the website of Microsoft's Polish business unit, the black man's head has been replaced with that of a white man

Poland's ethnic homogeneity may have played a role in changing the photo

One task at a time the only way to get things done San Francisco August 27, 2009 MULTITASKING is a bane not a blessing

The success of these and other Japanese works in Korea is raising concerns that Japanese pop culture could once again dominate Korea.

Experts say the Korean entertainment industry's dependence on Japanese pop culture will increase because the Japanese novel and manga markets are popular around the world. According to the Korean Publishing Research Institute, as of 2006 the size of the Korean novel market was no more than W203 billion, while that of Japanese market stood at W724.3 billion. The gap for the manga markets was even greater, with the Japanese market (W4 trillion) some 40 times bigger than the Korean market (W124.2 billion).

Bae Won-keun, a researcher at the KPRI, says it is a shame that Korean entertainment companies scramble to snap up Japanese stories for quick returns rather than working to strengthen their creative power. "The entertainment industry should make more effort to cultivate young writers with fresh ideas," he adds.