drew barrymore fights crime in henan … and other news
Squad of Chinese “Charlie’s Angels” act as bait to nab rapists (news.yahoo.com)
Policewomen in central China’s Henan province are tossing aside their uniforms and donning high heels, mini skirts and low-cut blouses in hopes of luring and nabbing rapists. The women are part of a special squad of young, attractive female officers recently formed by the city of Zhengzhou’s police department to serve as bait for sex assailants. … “In the past, we had male police officers dress up as women. They thought women were too weak to perform such work. But the men were not very convincing,” Liu said.
Beijing’s police go into training for the Olympics — with a phrasebook (telegraph.co.uk)
In readiness for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China’s Public Security Bureau has published a phrasebook to help its policemen deal with foreigners, criminally inclined or otherwise. … No stereotype is left unexplored. While South Africans are arrested for drunkenness and brawling, and Britons and Canadians commit traffic offences, it is Afghans and Pakistanis who commit really serious crimes.
Chinese Fight A New Kind Of Land War (washingtonpost.com)
A Nanjing man burned to death after protesting the demolition of his family’s shack to make room for a shopping mall. … [It’s] the latest tragedy in a war being fought across China pitting a juggernaut of development against growing grass-roots resistance. At the center of the battle is property, the very issue that put the Communist Party in power 54 years ago with the promise of land for peasants. The Communists soon confiscated the land for collective farming but then redistributed it as communes collapsed. Today, only the state owns the land, but peasants and city residents have rights to own buildings and lease land.
Beijing Sends In the Masses to Make Tibet More Chinese (nytimes.com)
Not far from Potala Palace, the hilltop fortress once home to Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and still a symbol of Tibetan culture, the main commercial boulevard here has become a very different symbol, of how Tibet is inexorably becoming more Chinese. … For the Chinese government, which still describes its violent takeover of Tibet in 1950-51 as a “peaceful liberation,” Tibet remains a prickly international issue, often defined by its sparring with the Dalai Lama over Tibetan autonomy. But the government’s strategy, launched in recent years and now in full swing, is about the politics of economics. (see also Tibet Torn Between Tradition and China’s Bounty - washingtonpost.com)
When in doubt, blame China (washingtonpost.com)
Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans plans to lash out at China today for trade policies that the White House contends are a leading reason U.S. manufacturers continue to bleed jobs, administration officials said yesterday.
Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship (news.yahoo.com)
CNN’s top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN “was intimidated” by the Bush administration and Fox News, which “put a climate of fear and self-censorship.” You don’t say?
09.15.2003, 9:35 PM · News
3 Comments
yes, you can get away with blaming China for a lot of things. but even if China were to start losing droves of manufacturing jobs by the crumbling of vast, state-owned sweatshops, there are many reasons why the manufacturing jobs in the US won’t be coming back—look for reasons closer to home.
oh yeah…now that i think about it, there ARE tens of millions of Chinese workers being laid off from state-owned factories every year. and as far as unfair trade practices are concerned, there are a couple hundred million unemployed farmers in China who might have something to say about the upcoming influx of American and other foreign produce poised to wreak more unemployment upon the sector via the WTO.
“In the past, we had male police officers dress up as women. They thought women were too weak to perform such work. But the men were not very convincing,” Liu said.
this is the funniest thing I read all week, thanks dude
oh darn I was wrong, the phrasebook part is the funniest thing I read all week