Ahad, 18 Mei 2014

The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

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Tearful S. Korea president says responsibility 'lies with me'

Posted: 18 May 2014 08:55 PM PDT

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean President Park Geun-Hye took tearful responsibility Monday for the mishandling of last month's Sewol ferry disaster, admitting many lives were unnecessarily lost and vowing to dismantle the national coastguard.

"The ultimate responsibility for the poor response to this accident lies with me," Park said in a televised address to the nation, during which she openly wept and twice bowed deeply in a display of contrition.

Park's popularity ratings have been hammered by the April 16 disaster that claimed around 300 lives, most of them schoolchildren.

She has voiced regret several times, but Monday's address was the first time she has explicitly accepted direct responsibility for what has become a defining moment of her presidency.

"As the president responsible for the lives and safety of South Koreans, I offer my sincere apology for all the suffering," she said.

Prime Minister Chung Hong-Won resigned last month over the disaster, and while there have been few calls for Park to step down, she has been criticised for not displaying enough sympathy or remorse.

Towards the end of her 30-minute address, Park's voice choked with emotion and tears ran down her face as she described the heroic actions of some of the victims who died trying to save others.

She highlighted the failure of the coastguard's immediate response to the tragedy and acknowledged the complaints of the victims' relatives that many more lives might have been saved.

"I have decided to dismantle the coastguard," she said, adding that its roles would be split between the police and a newly created ministry of national safety.

The 6,825-tonne Sewol was carrying 476 people when it capsized and sank off the southern coast on April 16.

The confirmed death toll stands at 286, with 18 still unaccounted for.

Of those on board, 325 were children from a high school on an organised trip to the southern resort island of Jeju.

The victims' families have been extremely critical of nearly every aspect of the government's handling of the disaster, with some taking their protests to the doors of the presidential Blue House in Seoul.

Many relatives believe some children may have survived for hours or even days inside air pockets in the capsized ferry, but died because rescuers took too long to access the submerged vessel.

'Act of murder'

Most of the ferry crew members escaped the vessel before it sank, and they have been vilified for abandoning hundreds of trapped passengers.

The Sewol's captain and three crew members were charged last week with manslaughter arising from gross negligence.

"The irresponsible acts of the captain and crew members who abandoned hundreds of people are practically an act of murder," Park said, adding that existing legislation would be amended to provide harsher penalties for officials found responsible for such accidents.

The Sewol tragedy has triggered a bout of intense national soul-searching in a country that had, until now, taken enormous pride in its extraordinarily rapid transformation from a war-torn, impoverished backwater to Asia's fourth-largest economy.

Investigations into the disaster have suggested it was almost wholly man-made: the result of cut corners, regulatory violations, poor safety training and a woeful lack of oversight -- all, or nearly all, attributable to a desire to maximise profits.

"It is our duty to reform and transform the country so that these lives were not lost for nothing," Park said, pledging to address the corrupt culture of collusion between regulators and business.

That cozy, illicit relationship was to blame, initial investigations suggest, for the fact that the Sewol was carrying three times its cargo capacity when it capsized.

Park also suggested that the time had come to break out of a period of mourning and recrimination that has paralysed the country for the past month.

"Now is the time to leave frustration behind and move forward. We have to set the country upright and transform it.

"I will stake my political life on correcting the wrong practices that have plagued our country for so long," she said.

South Korea is to hold key local elections in several weeks and Park's ruling Saenuri party is concerned about the political fallout of the ferry disaster.

Yang Seung-Ham, a professor of political science at Yonsei University, said Park's emotional address had sought to appease public opinion and draw a line in the blame game.

"Presidents should control their emotions, but I think it was a necessary gesture to show that she shared the public's sense of loss and sorrow," Yang said.

Modi holds talks on India's new government

Posted: 18 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

NEW DELHI: Prime minister-elect Narendra Modi has started to summon senior figures from his Hindu nationalist party for a series of talks on building a new government that is set to steer India sharply to the right.

Modi was holding meetings in New Delhi with his closest aides as well as national and state leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday after storming to power in the general elections with a strong mandate for economic reform.

A day after parties, street parades and religious ceremonies were staged around the country to celebrate the BJP's landslide election victory, Modi was behind closed doors working on forming his new cabinet.

B.S. Yeddyurappa, a BJP leader hailing from the southern state of Karnataka, was among the first to meet Modi at the Gujarat House in Delhi as rounds of negotiations for plum posts got under way, according to television footage.

"All kinds of people are meeting Modi," senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar told AFP, although he declined to give any details on the talks.

Modi, a popular but divisive political figure, later met with the party's elder statesman L.K. Advani at his Delhi residence.

The meeting followed the pair's falling out last year over Modi's nomination as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.

Modi, a former tea boy who has governed his home state of Gujarat for the last 13 years, is expected to take office later this week after successfully securing the strongest mandate of any Indian leader in 30 years.

Modi along with his right-wing BJP soundly trounced the left-leaning Congress, which has ruled India for most of the 60 years since India's independence.

The defeat piled much humiliation upon the famous Gandhi family that dominates the party.

Modi faces enormous expectations from tens of millions of voters after pledging to create jobs and increase development to revive the country's stagnant economy, which is growing at the lowest level in a decade.

After his presidential-style campaign dominated the election, Modi reiterated yesterday his pledge to work with his BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coalition to make India a world leader "once again".

"NDA is committed to creating new opportunities to empower the people of India and to make India a Jagat (world) Guru once again," Modi said on his official Twitter account.

He has also toned down his Hindu rhetoric and pledged national unity amid warnings from opponents that he will alienate the country's 150 million Muslims and other religious minorities once in power.

Modi is tainted by allegations that he failed to stop anti-Muslim riots on his watch in Gujarat that killed more than 1,000 people in 2002.

Modi has denied any wrongdoing on his part in the matter and a court investigation found no case to prosecute.

Yesterday, top BJP leaders were also expected to meet in Delhi with the right-wing Rashtriya Swa­yamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist organisation that is seen as the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.

A senior BJP leader denied that they would be taking orders from the RSS on who should be appointed to the new cabinet.

He added that the talks were simply part of many discussions that were under way.

"We come to the RSS headquarters and meet seniors.

"It is part of our life," M. Venkaiah Naidu told reporters as he arrived there.

The BJP secured 282 seats in the 543-member parliament – the biggest victory since 1984 – while Congress was left obliterated, holding just 44 seats – a quarter of its tally in 2009.

The glaring defeat raises questions about the endurance of the Gandhi political dynasty after 43-year-old Rahul, leading campaigning nationally for the first time, suffered such humiliating rejection.

Congress is holding a meeting today in Delhi in which the outcome and the future direction of the party are expected to be discussed.

Local media have speculated that Rahul and his mother, party president Sonia, will offer to resign. — AFP

Minister: Death for fatal abuse cases

Posted: 18 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

LAW Minister K. Shanmugam is in favour of imposing the death penalty on criminals who sexually assault women or abuse children, and the victim dies.

The Business Times yesterday quoted him as saying: "My thinking is that there should be a default death sentence for those who rape or sexually assault women, resulting in the victim's death, and for those who hurt a child and the child ends up dead.

"The accused in such cases should face the death penalty, unless he can prove why there shouldn't be such a penalty."

He told the paper that his view went further than what has been proposed by a committee, set up by his ministry and currently reviewing Singapore's law on homicide.

Chaired by Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah, it is considering creating a set of laws to deal with offenders who cause death as a result of violent crimes such as rape, crimes committed against young people and those committed by gangs.

Shanmugam is in Mexico where he will meet Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jose Antonio Meade.

His remarks reported yesterday drew a range of responses.

Amarick Gill, a criminal lawyer of 15 years, said that while he was personally opposed to the death penalty, there was reason to get tough on such offenders as their crimes can be termed "murder plus".

"Such acts are most offensive and when they lead to death, they are clearly more atrocious than murder, as though two crimes had been committed on the victim," he told The Sunday Times.

But Gill, who works at Trident Law, was against having a default death penalty. Rather, he felt the courts should have the discretion to decide on penalties.

"I feel that it would be too onerous a burden for an accused to prove (that he did not deserve death) if this was tabled into law," he said.

Gloria James-Civetta, a lawyer of 18 years, was against having such a law, saying it "seems to be very harsh". Having a default death penalty would also go against recent changes in homicide laws here, which have "reflected a second chance approach for the accused". — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

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New generation Coppola tackles James Franco's teen tales

Posted: 17 May 2014 04:40 AM PDT

Family tradition: Although she trained to be a photographer, Gia Coppola (above) was compelled to carry on the family's filmmaking tradition, releasing her first cinematic feature Palo Alto, which she wrote and directed, basing her script on James Franco's collection of short stories of the same name. Franco appears in the movie (below), as a physical education teacher who has an affair with a student. He also helped produce the film.

Coppola's family has a history of exploring coming-of-age stories, from her grandfather's 1983 films The Outsiders and Rumble Fish to her aunt's 1999 feature film debut with The Virgin Suicides, all of which Coppola said she referenced during her own debut process.

The film features vivid cinematography influenced by the director's photography training, and follows four characters whom Coppola pulled together from the stories of Franco, who also appears in the film.

April, played by Roberts, is introverted and mysterious, the object of Teddy's (Kilmer) affections but who is seduced by her 35-year-old teacher, Mr B (Franco). Fred (Nat Wolff) is the dangerous rebel without a cause who woos the shy and quiet Emily (Zoe Levin), only for their relationship to take a dark turn.

While Franco's book is set in the 1990s, Coppola sets her film in the present, sprinkling cell phones in lightly, but she said she wanted the film to feel "timeless".

Teen boredom

Franco, 36, wrote Palo Alto as part of his Master of Fine Arts writing degree at Brooklyn College, and while he has delved into writing and directing films, he said he didn't want to adapt his own book as he felt too close to the material.

He chose Coppola, whom he met five years ago, to direct the adaptation after seeing her photography. "The photos seemed to have the sensibility that was similar to the one I was trying to capture with the book," he said.

"They looked like little glimpses at youth that was filled with dreaming, a bit of the mundane, a bit of skepticism about the world around them, but also engaging with the world with a creative spirit," Franco added.

Actress Emma Roberts in a scene from Gia Coppola's movie Palo Alto.

The actor was quick to emphasise that his own childhood growing up in Palo Alto, an affluent San Francisco Bay Area community, was a happy one, but he wanted to capture the boredom he and his peers suffered. "Even though I was in this great place and I was at a really good school and I had friends and people thought I was cute, I still remember feeling more like nothing works out," he said.

Despite Coppola's Hollywood ancestry, Franco said financing the film was difficult due to the darker premise of the teenagers' stories. He said he donated his own salary from a film project to make the movie for a budget of under US$1mil (RM3.23mil) with his production company Rabbit Bandini.

Playing physical education teacher Mr B wasn't easy for Franco, who made his own breakout in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks television series as a brooding rebellious teen. The actor said he "hated" one particular scene in Palo Alto, which didn't make the final cut, in which he reprimands two teenage boys.

"I hated being on that side of things, because my alliance is with the kids in the book, all my feelings align with the kids, so I hated being the bad adult," he said with a laugh. – Reuters

Harrison Ford is badly wanted for 'Blade Runner' sequel

Posted: 15 May 2014 11:15 PM PDT

The actor is being wooed by the studio, Alcon Entertainment, via a press statement.

Alcon Entertainment wants Harrison Ford to return for Ridley Scott's sequel to Blade Runner, and it wants him so badly that it announced its offer to the actor in a press release. That is a highly unusual move in Hollywood where studios try to cover up potential castings until the deals are closed.

Ford starred in Scott's original film, a glimpse into a dystopian-future Los Angeles based on Philip K. Dick's book. The movie bombed at the box office when it first came out, but is now regarded as one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.

In the original, Ford plays Rick Deckard, a retired police officer whose job used to be tracking down and killing replicants, bioengineered beings with a limited lifespan. He realises some mischief within the Tyrell Corporation, which makes the replicants.

Alcon wants Ford to reprise his role in the sequel, which is set several decades later than the original. TheWrap has reached out to UTA, which reps Ford, for comment.

"We believe that Hampton Fancher and Michael Green have crafted with Ridley Scott an extraordinary sequel to one of the greatest films of all time," Alcon co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said in a statement.

"We would be honoured, and we are hopeful, that Harrison will be part of our project." Alcon Entertainment acquired the movie and all franchise rights in 2011 from producer Bud Yorkin, who will produce the sequel with Kosove and Johnson. — Reuters

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New generation Coppola tackles James Franco's teen tales

Posted: 17 May 2014 04:40 AM PDT

Family tradition: Although she trained to be a photographer, Gia Coppola (above) was compelled to carry on the family's filmmaking tradition, releasing her first cinematic feature Palo Alto, which she wrote and directed, basing her script on James Franco's collection of short stories of the same name. Franco appears in the movie (below), as a physical education teacher who has an affair with a student. He also helped produce the film.

Coppola's family has a history of exploring coming-of-age stories, from her grandfather's 1983 films The Outsiders and Rumble Fish to her aunt's 1999 feature film debut with The Virgin Suicides, all of which Coppola said she referenced during her own debut process.

The film features vivid cinematography influenced by the director's photography training, and follows four characters whom Coppola pulled together from the stories of Franco, who also appears in the film.

April, played by Roberts, is introverted and mysterious, the object of Teddy's (Kilmer) affections but who is seduced by her 35-year-old teacher, Mr B (Franco). Fred (Nat Wolff) is the dangerous rebel without a cause who woos the shy and quiet Emily (Zoe Levin), only for their relationship to take a dark turn.

While Franco's book is set in the 1990s, Coppola sets her film in the present, sprinkling cell phones in lightly, but she said she wanted the film to feel "timeless".

Teen boredom

Franco, 36, wrote Palo Alto as part of his Master of Fine Arts writing degree at Brooklyn College, and while he has delved into writing and directing films, he said he didn't want to adapt his own book as he felt too close to the material.

He chose Coppola, whom he met five years ago, to direct the adaptation after seeing her photography. "The photos seemed to have the sensibility that was similar to the one I was trying to capture with the book," he said.

"They looked like little glimpses at youth that was filled with dreaming, a bit of the mundane, a bit of skepticism about the world around them, but also engaging with the world with a creative spirit," Franco added.

Actress Emma Roberts in a scene from Gia Coppola's movie Palo Alto.

The actor was quick to emphasise that his own childhood growing up in Palo Alto, an affluent San Francisco Bay Area community, was a happy one, but he wanted to capture the boredom he and his peers suffered. "Even though I was in this great place and I was at a really good school and I had friends and people thought I was cute, I still remember feeling more like nothing works out," he said.

Despite Coppola's Hollywood ancestry, Franco said financing the film was difficult due to the darker premise of the teenagers' stories. He said he donated his own salary from a film project to make the movie for a budget of under US$1mil (RM3.23mil) with his production company Rabbit Bandini.

Playing physical education teacher Mr B wasn't easy for Franco, who made his own breakout in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks television series as a brooding rebellious teen. The actor said he "hated" one particular scene in Palo Alto, which didn't make the final cut, in which he reprimands two teenage boys.

"I hated being on that side of things, because my alliance is with the kids in the book, all my feelings align with the kids, so I hated being the bad adult," he said with a laugh. – Reuters

Harrison Ford is badly wanted for 'Blade Runner' sequel

Posted: 15 May 2014 11:15 PM PDT

The actor is being wooed by the studio, Alcon Entertainment, via a press statement.

Alcon Entertainment wants Harrison Ford to return for Ridley Scott's sequel to Blade Runner, and it wants him so badly that it announced its offer to the actor in a press release. That is a highly unusual move in Hollywood where studios try to cover up potential castings until the deals are closed.

Ford starred in Scott's original film, a glimpse into a dystopian-future Los Angeles based on Philip K. Dick's book. The movie bombed at the box office when it first came out, but is now regarded as one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.

In the original, Ford plays Rick Deckard, a retired police officer whose job used to be tracking down and killing replicants, bioengineered beings with a limited lifespan. He realises some mischief within the Tyrell Corporation, which makes the replicants.

Alcon wants Ford to reprise his role in the sequel, which is set several decades later than the original. TheWrap has reached out to UTA, which reps Ford, for comment.

"We believe that Hampton Fancher and Michael Green have crafted with Ridley Scott an extraordinary sequel to one of the greatest films of all time," Alcon co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said in a statement.

"We would be honoured, and we are hopeful, that Harrison will be part of our project." Alcon Entertainment acquired the movie and all franchise rights in 2011 from producer Bud Yorkin, who will produce the sequel with Kosove and Johnson. — Reuters

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The Star Online: World Updates

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Fire on Colombia church bus fire kills 31 children, one adult

Posted: 18 May 2014 09:15 PM PDT

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Thirty-one children and one adult were killed in Colombia on Sunday when fuel exploded on a broken-down bus returning from a church event, an emergency response coordinator said.

The charred bodies of victims were being identified using dental records in Barranquilla, the nearest city to Fundacion town where the accident happened, said Major Eduardo Velez, coordinator of Magdalena province's emergency response corps.

Eighteen people managed to escape and were being treated at hospitals in the region.

"There was a canister of gasoline inside the vehicle. The fire spread very fast," Velez told Reuters.

He said the fire started after the driver attempted to start the faulty bus by pouring fuel into the engine which he accessed through the floor of the cabin. The driver escaped unharmed and was being questioned by police, he said.

The bus was owned by a private transport company and was used during the week to took children to and from school.

President Juan Manuel Santos was traveling to Fundacion to console relatives of the victims.

(Reporting by Peter Murphy; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Robert Birsel)

South Korea's Park, sorry over ferry disaster, breaks up coast guard

Posted: 18 May 2014 08:50 PM PDT

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Park Geun-hye formally apologised on Monday for a ferry disaster last month that killed about 300 passengers, mostly school children, and said she would break up the coast guard because it had failed in its rescue mission.

Park has been hit hard by an angry nation-wide outcry over the government's response to South Korea's worst civilian maritime disaster in 20 years and the seemingly slow and ineffective rescue operation.

Polls show support for Park has dropped by more than 20 points since the April 16 disaster.

"I apologise to the nation for the pain and suffering that everyone felt, as the president who should have been responsible for the safety and lives of the people," Park said in a televised national address, her first since the ferry Sewol capsized and sank with 476 passengers and crew on board.

At least 286 people were killed and 18 remain missing. Only 172 people were rescued, with the rest presumed to have drowned.

Of the passengers, 339 were children and their teachers on a field trip from a high school on the outskirts of Seoul. Park fought back sobs as she remembered some of the teenagers who perished while trying to help each other.

She vowed sweeping reforms to improve oversight, as well as tough punishment for bureaucrats and businesses whose negligence endangers public safety.

"A 20-year-old vessel was bought and refurbished to add excessive capacity, then it was loaded with much more cargo than allowed with a false reporting on weight, but not a single person in the position to supervise stopped any of it," Park said.

She singled out structural problems within the coast guard as the main reason why there was such a high casualty toll from an accident that played out on national television as the vessel gradually sank with most of the passengers trapped inside.

"Had there been an immediate and proactive rescue operation after the accident, we would have been able to reduce the casualties," Park said.

The coast guard's rescue duties will be transferred to a national emergency safety agency to be set up and the national police will take over its investigative function, she said.

CREW ABANDONED SHIP

Some of the crew, including the captain, were caught on videotape abandoning ship while the children were repeatedly told to stay put in their cabins and await further orders.

Park, who is in the second year of a single five-year term, has apologised in person to many family members of the victims but her administration has faced continued criticism and nationwide anger for its handling of the disaster.

Park's public support has dropped to 46 percent, from 70 percent before the accident, according to a recent poll. Her formal apology and the blueprint for bureaucratic reform have been criticised for coming too late, while her decision to break up the coast guard has also been questioned.

"Although we need to integrate government functions on safety and disaster management, dissolving the coast guard all of sudden can make more problems that may be difficult to fix," said Professor Lee Jun-han of Incheon National University.

Park said the coast guard had not only failed in its search and rescue duty but that, in its current form, it would be unable to prevent another large-scale disaster.

"The coast guard continued to get bigger in size but did not have enough personnel and budget allocated for maritime safety, and training for rescue was very much insufficient," she said.

All 15 surviving crew members were indicted last week, including the captain and three senior crew members on homicide charges. The remaining 11 crew were indicted for negligence.

The prosecution says the ferry was structurally defective after a remodeling to add capacity and was massively overloaded with cargo. A sharp turn then caused it to list and capsize.

The Sewol had been on a supposedly routine journey from the mainland port of Incheon south to the holiday island of Jeju.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park and Sohee Kim; Editing by Choonsik Yoo and Paul Tait)

Mali sends troops to retake town from Tuareg separatists

Posted: 18 May 2014 07:56 PM PDT

KIDAL Mali (Reuters) - Mali sent in troops on Sunday to retake Kidal from Tuareg separatists after six government workers and two civilians were killed, according to the United Nations, during an attack on the regional governor's office.

At least eight soldiers were also killed and around 30 civil servants captured by rebels during clashes that broke out while Prime Minister Moussa Mara was on a visit to the northern town.

A spokesman for the separatists denied that anyone had been killed inside the government building.

Gunfire had already broken out before Mara's arrival early on Saturday and he was forced to take shelter in an army base.

"In light of this declaration of war, the Republic of Mali is henceforth at war," Mara told a Reuters reporter inside the base overnight.

He told a news conference on Sunday after he moved to Gao, another city in the north, that the government had already sent troops, including special forces, to retake Kidal.

"Reinforcements are on the way to Kidal. The objective is to totally retake Kidal," a senior military source also told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Mara was visiting the town, a stronghold of Tuareg separatists, for the first time since his appointment last month as part of efforts to revive long-delayed talks with northern armed groups.

Mali was thrown into turmoil in 2012 when al Qaeda-linked Islamists took advantage of a Tuareg-led rebellion and seized control of the country's north before a French-led military operation, known as Serval, drove them back last year.

The government and a grouping of armed groups including the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which broke with the Islamists ahead of the French offensive, signed an agreement to hold talks over autonomy last year.

But the clashes, the most serious pitting the government against Tuareg fighters since the French intervention, now threaten to sink efforts to find a peaceful solution to the long cycle of rebellions in the West African nation's desert north.

The United States condemned the violence, saying it undermined the country's fragile peace.

"We call for the immediate release of all hostages, and urge all parties to refrain from violence and from any acts that place civilians at risk," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. "The way to resolve these issues is through an inclusive and credible negotiation process, not through violence and intimidation."

The flare-up in a trouble spot many had hoped had been brought under control comes as West African nations and their international partners are redoubling efforts elsewhere to contain Islamist groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria.

France, in particular, is seeking to redeploy part of its force in Mali to tackle the regional threat.

MINUSMA, a nearly 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission, is rolling out, but is not yet at full strength.

'BARBARIC CRIME'

Mara criticised both the French and U.N. forces for allowing the attack to take place.

"The very least we'd expected from MINUSMA and Serval was that they'd ensure the governor's office wasn't attacked," he said.

MINUSMA said on Sunday that 21 U.N. police officers were injured in the clashes while providing security for the prime minister's visit to Kidal. Two suffered serious gunshot wounds.

"This barbaric crime is totally unacceptable and those responsible must answer for their actions," Albert Koenders, the head of MINUSMA, said of the killings in the governor's office. "An inquiry must be carried out quickly in order to verify the facts and bring the responsible parties to justice."

A spokesman for the MNLA, which claimed control of Kidal on Sunday, had earlier said the rebels were preparing to hand over the government workers they were holding.

"There were no murders," Attaye Ag Mohamed told Reuters by telephone from the town. "Those killed at the governor's office were killed in the exchange of gunfire or mortar explosions."

He said the MNLA was also holding 15 soldiers it considered to be prisoners of war.

Malian forces suffered 25 wounded in addition to the eight dead, according to the Defence Ministry, while 28 attackers were killed and 62 wounded.

A Malian military source said Saturday's gun battle erupted after MNLA fighters in two trucks attacked an army checkpoint in front of the governor's office.

The MNLA's Ag Mohamed rejected the government's version of Saturday's events and said the army attacked first, opening fire on the group's barracks following pro-independence protests in the town.

He said the rebels had killed 19 government soldiers and suffered no losses of their own.

"The situation is calm right now. We're in position. We're not scared of the Malian army. We're ready," Ag Mohamed said.

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Joe Bavier, and Peter Cooney in Washington; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Alison Williams and Eric Walsh)

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Thai fisherman falls off boat, swims for 7 hours before rescue

Posted: 18 May 2014 08:55 AM PDT

KUALA TERENGGANU: A Thai fisherman who fell off a boat had to swim for seven hours before being rescued by an oil rig worker.

The victim, Tok Saphon Samechit, 32, was handed over to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), said Kuala Terengganu Maritime Enforcement chief, Captain G. Xavier Thevadas.

He said the victim was believed to have fallen overboard at about 4am while answering the call of nature.

Shipmates did not see him falling off but he fortunately managed to cling on to a barrel to stay afloat.

"The victim saw a light from an oil rig and swam for seven hours towards it.

"He screamed for help and fell asleep due to fatigue before the oil rig worker found him in a weak state at 4.15pm on Saturday," he said in a statement here Sunday.

He said they received the information at 6pm Saturday and sent a vessel which arrived at the oil rig located 72 nautical miles north-east of Kuala Terengganu at 3.10 am.

The victim was brought back to the MMEA jetty here and sent to the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital for treatment.

"No injuries were reported," he said.

He said the victim would be remanded for 14 days in an MMEA lockup in Kuala Terengganu for further investigation. - Bernama

Najib awarded highest-possible UAE honour for head of state

Posted: 18 May 2014 07:02 AM PDT

ABU DHABI: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has been conferred the Union Medal by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the highest award for a head of state, here on Sunday.

The Prime Minister received the award from Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Shaikh Mohammed Zayed al Nahyan when Najib paid a courtesy call on him at Mushrif Palace.

The honour is in recognition of Najib's contribution for enhanced bilateral ties between Malaysia and the UAE.

Najib is here on a three-day state visit at the invitation of Shaikh Mohammad.

NS Department: Four trainees test positive for H1N1, 54 quarantined

Posted: 18 May 2014 06:11 AM PDT

ALOR SETAR : Four National Service (NS) trainees from the Dusun Minda Resort in Kuala Nerang have tested positive for the H1N1 virus.

NS Department director Datuk Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil confirmed the report and said the camp had taken measures to ensure that the virus does not spread.

"Affected trainees are being quarantined in a separate dormitory, away from the camp," said Abdul Hadi when contacted by The Star.

He said the camp's medical personnel were informed that the trainees were affected by the virus at 3pm Sunday.

It was reported in The Star Saturday that 52 trainees from the camp had been quarantined due to fever.

Abdul Hadi said the number of those in quarantine had since increased to 54.

"We have contacted the state health department and they will be sending a team of medical personnel to the camp," he said.

Abdul Hadi said camp officers would abide by instructions given by the medical personnel, and that programmes and activities for unaffected trainees would continue as normal.

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The Tommy Koh Reader: Favourite Essays And Lectures

Posted: 17 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

This former Singaporean civil servant's thoughts will resonate with Malaysians.

A small black-and-white sketch on the cover of The Tommy Koh Reader offers a partial glimpse of the author's face.

The collection of Prof Tommy Koh's speeches and written works is also a partial glimpse of one of Singapore's most versatile, accomplished and outspoken sons. It would be difficult to give a full picture of his impact on academia, diplomacy, law, the arts, heritage and the environment in Singapore, but this selection does cover a range of the causes he has championed.

Koh and other members of the University Socialist Club "were very passionate about our quest to build a more democratic, just and equal world," he wrote. As a student, he "hoped that we would find a socio-economic model which would achieve growth with equity".

He is still voicing similar concerns. In 2010, he noted that Singapore's founding fathers had a vision of a country like an olive, with a large middle class and relatively few people at the top and the bottom, and warned, "We must not allow the olive to become a pear".

NO CAPTION, USE SMALL, AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE, PLEASE!

After graduating, Koh did his law pupillage with former chief minister David Marshall and then lectured at the National University of Singapore's Faculty of Law. But in 1968 he was asked to represent the newly independent nation as its Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Although he later became dean of the Faculty of Law (1971-1974), he spent most of his professional life with Singapore's Foreign Affairs Ministry.

An "active participant" in the republic's diplomacy for 41 years, Koh proved to be one of its most formidable negotiators. He described his tactics on drafting the agenda as Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit in 1991 and 1992: "My strategy was to maintain the pressure on the delegates until they agreed to compromise. By 4:30am, the delegates were so exhausted that they asked me to draft a compromise. I called for a short recess, and with the help of about a dozen colleagues representing the various interest groups, succeeded in drafting a compromise. I got my agenda."

Koh combined his legal and diplomatic skills as president of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (1981-1982), which wrote "a constitution for the oceans". The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea "has survived the test of time", he wrote, and "brought legal order, certainty and peace to the world's oceans and seas. It is often regarded as one of the UN's most important contributions to the rule of law in the world."

The "son of a book-loving father and an art-loving mother", Koh was the founding chairman of the National Arts Council (1991) and in 1992, chaired Singapore's Censorship Review Committee.

"When an attempt was made to stigmatise forum theatre and The Necessary Stage", he wrote to Singapore's The Straits Times newspaper to defend them. But he failed "to protect performance artist Josef Ng from the wrath of law enforcement agencies".

That was not the only time Koh criticised Government policies. He has been part of the establishment, but he has also been active in civil society.

"Non-governmental organisations by their very nature must be nuisances," he told Asiaweek magazine in 1996. "But we need such positive nuisances."

For example, he cited "Saving the trees of the Lower Peirce Reservoir from being cut down to make way for a golf course" as one of Singapore's most important environmental achievements. Although it's not mentioned in the book, Koh could take credit for that since he is patron of the Nature Society (Singapore), which led Singapore's biggest protest campaign in 1992 – long before the dawn of social media.

NSS members first compiled an 80-page report about the biodiversity in the catchment area and the impact the proposed golf course would have on water quality and the environment. When the Government did not respond, they organised a campaign that collected around 17,000 signatures. The proposal was eventually shelved.

This collection will resonate with many Malaysians and Singaporeans but readers further afield may have to resort to the Internet to check out some cryptic acronyms and references. An index and more footnotes in later editions would be helpful.

Radiance Of Tomorrow

Posted: 17 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

A bleak, haunting yet ultimately uplifting novel about rebuilding after a war.

ISHMAEL Beah's 2007 memoirs, A Long Way Gone, was a brave, brutal, haunting and horrific glimpse into the life of child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

Prior to the decade-long civil war that began in 1992, Beah's life was simple: he hung out with his older brother and friends, trying to rap and dance to hip hop music.

When the war broke out, Beah was 12, and in a single moment he lost the innocence of childhood and learnt of adult treachery when he was forced to pick up a gun and become a child soldier.

Following international intervention when he was 15 – mostly from children's aid agencies – Beah was saved by an American woman who he now calls "Mother". He was lucky, but millions in Sierra Leone were not, and this is something Beah is very aware of.

In his author's note in Radiance Of Tomorrow, Beah writes:

"I wanted to have people understand how it feels to return to places that have been devastated by war, to try to start living there again, to raise a family there again, to rekindle some of the traditions that have been destroyed.

"How do you do that? How do you try to shape a future if you have a past that's still pulling at you?"

In essence, the fictional Radiance Of Tomorrow is built on the traumatic and all too factual events of Beah's childhood and his experience of returning to Sierra Leone after living for two decades in the relative comfort and safety of the United States.

The central characters in Radiance Of Tomorrow are two childhood friends, Bockarie and Benjamin, who return after the war to their home village of Imperi, which had suffered a massacre. They are teachers who, idealistically, want to help rebuild their village and impart knowledge to the village children.

But there are many obstacles to their well-intentioned plans.

For one thing, many villagers find it difficult to forget the atrocities they experienced (entire families have had hands cut off) and witnessed and move on with their lives.

And a mysterious Colonel stirs up suspicion when he arrives with a group of children who had obviously been child soldiers during the war.

Beah cleverly keeps readers guessing whether the Colonel had masterminded the abduction of children in the 1990s, prior to the start and well into the civil war, and if he had anything to do with the Imperi massacre.

And then there's the international corporation that arrives to mine minerals; again, Beah introduces a plot twist that keeps us guessing: is the company actually digging illegally for diamonds?

To make matters worse, the corporation starts throwing money around; so, in addition to the lack of food and potable water, and murders, rape and theft that plague Imperi daily, now jealousy and age-old feuds raise their ugly heads as the villagers compete for the money.

Will Bockerie and Benjamin see their dream come true? Will Sierra Leone ever experience peace within her borders?

Although Radiance Of Tomorrow is not as brutal as Beah's memoirs, he does not shy away from providing gruesomely realistic details about the aftermath of war.

In the opening chapter, for instance, he paints this vivid picture of a character walking along a path:

"There was one town in particular that was eerier than the others – there were rows of human skulls on either side of the path leading into town. When the breeze came about, it shook the skulls, causing them to rotate slowly, so it seemed they were all turning their hollow eye sockets at her as she hastened past them."

Indeed, Beah's fiction is deeply rooted in reality. There might not be a troubled Imperi or an international corporation mining for minerals (or diamonds), but the reality is there remains civil unrest in Sierra Leone and international corporations have been flocking to the Western African country to exploit for themselves the ongoing chaos from years of war.

Beah's writing is simple and clear: it is easy to get absorbed in this novel.

A nice touch is how he uses a local Sierra Leone dialect, Mende, in parts of the book; it is a poetic dialect – "ball" in Mende is translated as "nest of air". His use of the dialect, particularly in dialogue, adds a sense of authenticity.

While Radiance Of Tomorrow should be read by everyone, it might not be to everyone's liking, reaching out perhaps mainly to those who have an interest in Africa and African literature.

It will also appeal to those who like their novels to have a thread of hope and positivity. While there is much bleakness in Radiance Of Tomorrow, it is not all doom and gloom; the underlying message of the novel is that the power of humanity can outweigh all negativity, and tomorrow is always another day filled with hope and endless possibilities.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

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Dark side of the mind

Posted: 17 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

HR Giger 1940-2014

Surrealist artist and set designer HR Giger's chest-bursting monster in the 1979 film Alien gained him worldwide acclaim.

Several elements were vital to the effectiveness of the 1979 horror film Alien, which was essentially an old-fashioned haunted house story relocated to deep space. (Its own director, Ridley Scott, called it "a C-movie done in an A-way".) Chief among them was the visceral and disquieting design work by the Swiss surrealist artist HR Giger, who died on Monday aged 74 from injuries sustained in a fall.

Giger's "biomechanical" style was born out of his experience of night terrors and the art therapy in which he partook to combat this sleeping disorder. It is fair to say that he has been responsible in his own way for disrupting the sleep of others.

"People are either thrilled or terrified by Giger's art," said the Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs. "No one else knows how to depict the most horrific nightmares so stunningly beautifully." The novelist and film-maker Clive Barker observed: "Giger seems to be painting aliens but the closer you look, the more you realise he's painting twisted versions of us."

Alien centred on an intergalactic cargo vessel which touches down on a desolate planet in response to a distress signal. The crew inadvertently picks up a carnivorous life form. It later bursts from the chest of one crew member in the most memorable entrance of any film character since Orson Welles stepped from the shadows in The Third Man. The infant monster is smooth, eyeless and bulbous, both foetal and absurdly phallic, with a row of silver milk-teeth and a lashing, segmented tail.

"It was Francis Bacon's work that gave me the inspiration," said Giger. "(It) would come tearing out of the man's flesh with its gaping mouth, grasping and with an explosion of teeth ... it's pure Bacon."

The alien flees the scene of its birth and is glimpsed at subsequent stages of its accelerated development as it picks off the crew one by one. Still apparently without eyes, it has now grown as tall as a Harlem Globetrotter. Its entire head takes the form of a gleaming, elongated shell that suggests a futuristic crash helmet. Within its vast jaw are rows of teeth emerging like drawers in a filing cabinet. A tendency to drool lends it a lascivious element. All this grotesqueness never quite undermines its allure.

In the final scene, the monster is blasted into space by the only survivor, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. Both she and her nemesis returned in three sequels of contrasting flavours: James Cameron's wham-bam Aliens (1986), David Fincher's clammy, intense Alien 3; (1992) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's comic-book-style Alien Resurrection (1997). Giger's designs were central to each of those sequels, as well as two crossovers with the Predator franchise – Alien vs Predator (2004) and Alien vs Predator: Requiem (2007).

But his involvement was not always harmonious, or even acknowledged. "With the fourth Alien film, they just took my creations, they used my 'chest-burster' and they didn't even give me any credit. It's offensive." He had a happier experience contributing to Scott's own Alien prequel, Prometheus (2012).

Giger was brought on board Alien at the suggestion of its screenwriter, Dan O'Bannon. Both men had been collaborating in the late 1970s with the cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's science-fiction epic Dune, which was never made (though Giger's designs for the abandoned project can be seen in a 2013 documentary called Jodorowsky's Dune). O'Bannon introduced Giger's 1977 book Necronomicon to Scott, who seized in particular upon the painting Necronom IV, and commissioned him to design a creature based on this.

"I was the first one to go see him in Switzerland and persuade him to get on a plane," said Scott. "He wouldn't get on a plane, because he was afraid of flying. And he finally came to Shepperton. Never went into town, stayed over a pub in Shepperton. Very non-Giger, not exotic. He was in a room over a pub and he was happy there."

The artist built a prototype incorporating Rolls-Royce parts, rib bones and reptile vertebrae. His responsibilities expanded also to include the design of a partially fossilised figure (sometimes referred to as the "space jockey") seen when the crew explore the planet, as well as the planet itself (LV-426). Plainly put, his influence permeates Alien. Giger was deservedly part of the team rewarded when the film won the Visual Effects Oscar in 1980.

He was born Hans Rudolf Giger in Chur, Switzerland, which he called "unbearable", characterised by "high mountains (and) bourgeois attitudes". The family home was a place of early terror. He later wrote in Necronomicon of the cellar as "a monstrous labyrinth where all kinds of dangers lay in wait for me" and of "steep and treacherous wooden stairways without banisters (that) led down into the yawning abyss."

Other boys played with toy cars but Giger could usually be seen dragging a skull on wheels behind him; he constructed ghost trains in the garden. His father, Hans, was a chemist who encouraged Giger to study industrial design, which he did along with architecture at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. His mother, Melly, to whom he was close, was more encouraging of his provocative style of painting, drawing and sculpture. An early muse was the actor Li Tobler, with whom Giger had a tempestuous relationship. Tobler, who killed herself in 1975, was the inspiration for the wan, wilted females in his paintings.

Giger worked predominantly in inks and oils at first. His use of the airbrush soon became integral to his art, bringing a slick smoothness to images which oscillated between the grisly and the sensuous, often accommodating both. He prized the airbrush's "tremendous directness" and said that it enabled him to "project my visions directly onto the pictorial surface, freezing them immediately". But he abandoned it near the end of his career when it was adopted by artists with whom he did not want to be associated: "I could damage my reputation, since much of what they do is pure kitsch. I keep myself apart from that. I see myself as a surrealist."

He gained widespread exposure after being featured on the cover of the 1973 Emerson, Lake and Palmer album Brain Salad Surgery. In the early 1970s, he made several short documentaries about his work. His fame increased following the release of Alien, and he took on occasional and usually unfulfilling work on other films, among them Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), the Alien-influenced Species (1995) and the 1996 German horror-comedy Killer Condom (tagline: "The rubber that rubs you out!"). He also collaborated on several Giger bars, including two in Switzerland, which reproduced his aesthetic in a social setting.

His first marriage ended in divorce in 1982. He is survived by his second wife, Carmen, director of the HR Giger Museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland, whom he married in 2006. – Guardian News & Media

Process of reflection

Posted: 17 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

Local artists redefine what it means to be a woman in Malaysia today.

A faithful wife. A doting mother. A selfless homemaker who also works hard for her money. A supermodel beauty who covers herself and protects her modesty.

These ideas of a "good" woman are deeply etched in our social consciousness.

But have we ever asked ourselves who planted them there? Whose ideas are they? Who judges what is "good" or "bad"?

The Good Malaysian Woman: Ethnicity, Religion, Politics exhibition, currently on at Black Box, MAP Publika, raises exactly these questions.

"We hear it a lot – 'Be a good girl,' 'Good girls never do that,' – but if I ask someone, 'Are you a good Malaysian woman?' her reaction will likely be what do you mean by 'good'?

"All in Grace" by Anisa Abdullah. It is one of the works showing at  â¿¿The Good Malaysian Woman: Ethnicity, Religion, Politicsâ¿¿, exhibition organised by AWAM and  Interpr8 Art Space, which will be held from 18 to 25 May, 2014, Black Box, MAP Publika, in Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.

All In Grace by Anisa Abdullah.

"This is what we want to do: to poke people into reflecting about what is accepted as 'good' (in women) by society," says Sharmin Parameswaran, one of the curators of the show.

Featuring 22 Malaysian women artists, the exhibition is a collaboration between Interpr8 Art Space and women's rights group All Women's Action Society (Awam).

As Awam assistant programme manager Lee Wei San points out, while some stereotypes have been entrenched in society for a long time, the growing politicisation of ethnic and religion in Malaysia today is further affecting women's sense of self, community and nationality.

"Intolerance around ethnic and religious issues has particular effects on women. Women, more so than men, are pressured to speak, behave, or dress in specific ways. Women are also stigmatised or persecuted when they do not conform to accepted gender roles, or fit within what society imagines as the 'the good Malaysian woman.'"

Crucially, the exhibition is an attempt to represent women from their own eyes while celebrating their diversity and complexity.

Tolerance! by Shia Yih Ying

Tolerance! by Shia Yih Ying.

"We wanted to make it about women projecting images of their own construct, not of somebody else's construct. And here we have 22 different ways of looking at what it means to be a woman in Malaysia today," adds Sharmin's co-curator Sunitha Janamohanan.

Some of the artists featured include Shia Yih Ying, Yee I-Lann, Aisyah Baharuddin, Intan Rafiza, Sharon Chin and Anisa Abdullah.

"We looked for female artists who were already addressing current issues in their practice.

"At the same time, we wanted as broad a mix of women artists as possible – of different ages, at different stages of their career and from different ethnic mix and religions - to represent the diversity of Malaysia," says Sunitha.

The final selection of artists and their different mediums have produced an exciting collection of artworks that captures the multiplicity of Malaysian women - from Yee I-Lan's photo play on power Picturing Power to Aisyah Baharuddin's mixed-media installation It's Not Easy To Learn To Deal With Freedom.

Of course, women's issues in Malaysia are never free from cultural sensitivities. How do the curators deal with this?

"True, some of the issues are taboo and there is a lot of censorship on the female form but the artists are conscious of that and take it into account when expressing themselves.

"It is all about how you negotiate society's expectations of what is right and wrong, which is linked directly to the issues we are exploring here," says Sharmin.

Ultimately, it is about the context.

"We hope people can understand the context of the works and what the artists are trying to say about the issue before getting unnecessarily offended," she adds, stressing that the beauty of art is to trigger thought and challenge people to see things and life in different ways.

So, what is "a good woman" for the women behind "The Good Malaysian Woman"?

Sunitha believes she doesn't exist, "We are what we are."

For Sharmin, to each woman her own, "It should be what you are happy with. As clichéd as it sounds, you should define the 'good' yourself."

> "The Good Malaysian Woman: Ethnicity, Religion, Politics" exhibition is on from today to May 25 at Black Box, MAP Publika, in Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur. Some of the proceeds from the sale of the works will go to Awam.

Beauty in the beast

Posted: 17 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

A young Filipino artist's animalistic paintings are both unsettling and mesmerising.

Bree Jonson is soft of speech and gentle in manner, with her milky complexion and waifish appearance making her look even younger than her 23 years. Listening to her muted sentences, puntuated by shy smiles, one gets the impression of a delicate animal, one that may just bolt if you get too close.

Appearances, however, can be deceiving; Jonson's serene facade conceals a mind that is enamoured with the ferocious side of life, which the Filipino artist depicts with brutal yet beautiful honesty in her first solo exhibition of paintings, Therion Mythos (presented by OUR ArtProjects), in Kuala Lumpur.

Revolving around both domestic and wild animals – "therion" means beast in Greek – the oil paintings are both unsettling and mesmerising. The style is realist, almost classical, with such a strong focus on minute details like pelts and antlers that the animals almost leap out of the canvas. Yet, there is a mythical, almost primal quality to each piece, as the beasts are depicted in the midst of attacking, devouring or destroying each other.

Some are almost true-to-life, such as Leucippus, a large painting in which a pack of dogs rip a doe apart as a buck battles against being strangled by a rearing snake. Others, meanwhile, are more fantastical, like Asphyxia, where a disembodied wolf's head is coiled tightly in what appear to be entrails, hovering over a country landscape; or Ophiuchus, in which a hissing snake slithers out of a gash in a severed horse's head.

Filipino artist Bree Jonson is exhibiting her works in Kuala Lumpur, in a show called

Bree Jonson

Jonson's fascination with and love for animals began at a very young age. She remembers, at around the age of four, of having intense dreams in which she became an animal herself. She shares that she was so affected by these dreams that she walked around on all fours and started eating without utensils!

"My mother did get a little worried at one point!" she laughs. "But she was a vet, so she understood my love for animals. She used to bring home animals, and that spurred on my passion too."

While always inclined towards art – she shares that she would sketch at every spare moment while growing up – Jonson studied engineering in university to please her parents. When she began her Masters, however, she took an art test, and went on to pursue that instead. While she didn't finish a formal art course, she did find a mentor, and trained in oils. And here, she found her passion for art and for animals gradually combining.

"I just started painting what I liked. I read a lot of philosophy, particularly about the idea of nothingness and how it affects our lives, and I decided I wanted to use my animals to explore those concepts. I also painted because I don't see any other paintings like these."

Filipino artist Bree Jonson's

Leucippus by Bree Jonson.

Animals, Jonson says, show her the truth about human nature. "I really see animals as fables, as a metaphor for humans. Even when I'm reading mythology or philosophy, I can always see them come to life in animals," she explains.

Therion Mythos is Jonson's way of depicting the realities of nature at its most primal, unvarnished and stripped of all niceties.

"In modern times, nature is always depicted as calm and beautiful. Animals are usually portrayed as cute, cuddly or majestic. But animals have another side, one in which they have to take care of their own needs. This isn't any different from humans; we all have a depth that we may not show. I do find animals beautiful, but with a tinge of rabidness, which isn't a bad thing. They need this to survive, and so do we," she says.

> "Therion Mythos" is on till May 25 at Lot 55, Art Row, Publika, Kuala Lumpur. Viewing hours are Tuesday to Sunday, noon-6pm. For more info, www.ourartprojects.com.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

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Vietnam stifles new demonstrations as China fumes

Posted: 18 May 2014 05:13 AM PDT

HANOI: Vietnamese security forces stifled fresh protests Sunday over China's plans to drill for oil in contested waters, as Beijing sent five ships to help evacuate its nationals from Vietnam following deadly mass riots last week.

China's state media said more than 3,000 of its citizens had already returned home in recent days after the territorial tensions and riots sent relations between the frequently quarrelsome communist neighbours spiralling to their lowest point in decades.

Enraged mobs torched or otherwise damaged hundreds of foreign-owned businesses last week, killing two Chinese nationals and injuring about 140.

While China's deployment of the giant rig is seen in Vietnam as a grave provocation, the ferocious public reaction appeared to catch authorities by surprise.

Fearing an impact on vital foreign investment, Vietnamese authorities took no chances Sunday as activist groups tried to stage further demonstrations, though they insisted they would be peaceful.

Hundreds of security personnel swarmed over streets leading to the sprawling Chinese embassy in Hanoi, restricting access to the neighbourhood and other suspected protest sites.

Blogs by civil society groups involved in the protest call said activists were detained in several areas around the country or prevented from leaving their homes. 

Exchanges suspended

China's Xinhua news agency said the Chinese nationals brought home included 135 people hurt in the unrest last Tuesday and Wednesday including 16 who were "critically injured".

China also said it was dispatching five ships to bring home even more of its nationals and would suspend some bilateral exchanges with its southern neighbour.

The recent violence was "damaging the atmosphere and conditions for exchanges and cooperation", a foreign ministry statement said.

"The Chinese side as of today... suspended part of its bilateral exchange plans," it said, without giving specifics of the plans.

"China will see how the situation develops and look into taking further steps."

China had earlier warned its citizens against travel to Vietnam following what it called the "explosion of violence" and has urged its nationals still in the country to increase safety precautions.

The oil rig standoff has further poisoned relations between two countries that have fought territorial skirmishes in the past and are increasingly at odds over their South China Sea claims.

Workers demonstrated in 22 of Vietnam's 63 provinces last week, according to the government, with furious mobs torching foreign-owned factories and enterprises believed to be linked to China or which employed Chinese personnel.

Hundreds of businesses were hit, Vietnam's government has said.

China is widely accused in Vietnam of bullying behaviour stretching back more than 1,000 years, and Hanoi's communist government occasionally allows protesters to vent anger. 

Damage control
 
But the recent outbursts have sent the government scrambling to limit damage to a developing economy dependent on foreign investment.

"We will not allow any acts targeting foreign investors, businesses or individuals, to ensure that the regrettable incidents will not be repeated," Dang Minh Khoi, assistant to Vietnam's foreign minister, told reporters Saturday.

"We ask countries to continue to encourage their investors and citizens to rest assured on doing business in Vietnam."

Vietnamese officials say more than 300 suspected perpetrators were being prosecuted.

Vietnam's abundant, cheap labour market attracted $21.6 billion in foreign direct investment in 2013, up from $16.3 billion the year earlier, according to government figures.

The recent events could have a long-term impact on its image as a safe place for investment, said Edmund Malesky, an expert on Vietnam's investment-fuelled development at Duke University.

"The riots have called that safety into question. In the future, foreign investors will have to balance Vietnam's advantageous labour costs and quality against this potential instability," he said.

China, which has refused Hanoi's demands to remove the Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig, has been roundly criticised for deploying it given increasing tensions in the South China Sea, with Washington expressing deep concern over the potential for the row to escalate.

Dozens of Chinese and Vietnamese vessels have engaged in repeated skirmishes near the rig, including reported rammings and the use of water cannon.

The violence in Vietnam has further inflamed the situation, with China accusing Hanoi of a role in the unrest.

The enterprises targeted in the violence included Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean and Singaporean businesses.

It was not clear why non-Chinese businesses were hit, but there is growing resentment in Vietnam over a perceived rise in Chinese workers taking jobs from locals, in addition to reported unhappiness over working conditions with some foreign employers.

China's Southeast Asian neighbours have voiced growing alarm over Beijing's increasingly assertive claim to nearly all of the South China Sea, a stance buttressed by a rapid build-up of the Chinese military. -AFP

How Chinese officials 'like' banned Facebook

Posted: 17 May 2014 10:06 PM PDT

Beijing (AFP) - China's Communist authorities ban their own people from accessing major global social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. But when it comes to self-promotion they are increasingly keen users themselves.

The official news agency Xinhua, the Communist Party's official mouthpiece the People's Daily, and state broadcaster CCTV all have Twitter accounts, as do a host of city and provincial authorities.

When the city of Hangzhou, renowned for its lakes and canals, looked to raise its international profile it turned to Facebook, the world's most-popular social network.

China's Internet users, who now number 618 million, have been blocked from using it since 2009.

But the city's "Modern Marco Polo" competition -- akin to Australia's "best job in the world" contests -- involves no fewer than six Facebook apps.

The winner, to be announced Tuesday, will receive 40,000 euros ($55,000) and a two-week trip to Hangzhou, in exchange for promoting the city on Facebook and Twitter for a year.

Michael Cavanaugh, a consultant for British-based PR Agency One, which has been promoting the contest, told AFP increasing official use of such sites was "inevitable". But he declined to say how the winner was expected to post to them from within China.

- Great Firewall of China -

China's Communist authorities maintain a tight grip on expression -- both on- and off-line -- fearful of any dissent that could spiral into a challenge to one-party rule.

Some Chinese Internet users and businesses use VPNs, or virtual private networks, to bypass the vast censorship apparatus known as the Great Firewall, and state-run media often use foreign bureaux to accomplish the same goal.

Hangzhou itself used a digital agency in Hong Kong, where Facebook is not blocked, to administer its contest -- an increasing trend by cities and provinces within China's borders.

The social media giant is actively seeking business in the country.

"We want to help tourism agencies in China tell the rest of the world about the fabulous things in China that are really not that well-understood," Vaughan Smith, Facebook's vice president of corporate development, told a Beijing audience last month.

Facebook is reportedly in talks to open a sales office in the Chinese capital, and in recent weeks the company has quietly posted Beijing-based job openings on its website, including one for a client solutions manager to "focus on planning, implementing, and optimising advertising campaign spending for the world's top-tier advertisers".

Its executives are making increasingly frequent appearances at high-profile events in China, and the company's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg drew international headlines last September when she met the head of China's State Council Information Office, which oversees propaganda efforts.

Google also seeks advertisers in China and has three offices on the mainland, but pulled out its servers in 2010 in a row about censorship.

Twitter, which is a prominent advocate for free speech online, has shown few signs of interest in setting up in China, although the company's CEO Dick Costolo met Shanghai government officials during his first China visit in March.

Facebook representatives declined interview requests about the company's China business.

Duncan Clark, chairman of Beijing-based tech consultancy BDA, said Chinese local authorities had huge budgets and their tourism advertisements were probably lucrative for the multi-billion-dollar firm.

However, Facebook was unlikely to see them as a way of gaining access to Chinese users, Clark said.

"There's kind of a common-sense, logical middle ground where Facebook and China will agree to trade with each other," he told AFP. "This is business sense. I wouldn't expect that to change."

- Netizens: 'discriminatory' -

Other promotions include the "Rebirth of the Terracotta Warrior" Facebook contest launched last month by Shaanxi province, home to the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shihuang.

A "Chengdu Pambassador" campaign gave contestants a chance to become a "guest panda keeper" at the southwestern city's giant panda base through a series of Facebook activities.

But critics of Chinese censorship say such schemes give Beijing a soft-power boost through sleight-of-hand.

A co-founder of anti-censorship website GreatFire.org who uses the pseudonym Charlie Smith told AFP: "I think the average Western netizen doesn't put two and two together and realise actually, these websites are blocked in China.

"That helps China, for sure, because it gives this impression that Facebook is actually open and free for the people who don't know that it isn't," he added.

The double standards have not escaped the notice of Chinese web users.

The Shaanxi provincial government announced the opening of its tourist board's Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts in a posting on Weibo -- a Chinese version of Twitter -- in February.

Several users angrily responded that they were unable to open the links, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

"We're not advocating that domestic tourists visit these pages," a provincial government representative told the paper, drawing even greater fury.

"This way of thinking is discriminatory against Chinese people," wrote one online commentator. "It shows a lack of understanding of the basic rules of tourism promotion. It's very stupid and quite laughable." - AFP

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