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Thursday, November 27, 2008
New Internet Censorship Plan Rattles Public
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/australia/australia-internet-censorship-filter-7719.html
By Julia Huang
The Epoch Times Nov 26, 2008 Share: Facebook Digg del.icio.us StumbleUpon
Related articles: Australia > National
A Reporters Without Borders website blocked in Beijing, 30 May 2007. The Federal Government is planning to implement a similar, if less restrictive, internet filter to be rolled out on Christmas eve. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
A pilot test of the Rudd Government’s plan for mandatory Internet filtering will begin on Christmas Eve. However, an Opposition movement, including Internet service providers and technical experts, have voiced their concerns about the effects of the plan on civil liberties.
The cyber-safety plan will use two filters, one of which is optional and aims to protect Australian children from the dangers of the Internet. The other filter will be mandatory and will also block “unwanted content”, a category which is not yet defined for the public.
Supporters of the plan believe that the Government has an obligation to protect children. The Australian Christian Lobby, Family First Senator Steve Fielding and Independent Nick Xenophon are advocates for the filtering.
“The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry’s desire for unfettered access,” stated Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby.
“I think we’ve got to as a society decide what is right for us and what’s not. Almost every parent in Australia is most concerned about their child and would be prepared to give up some of their rights in order to protect their children,” Mr Wallace told ABC Radio PM.
Opponents of the plan argue that protecting the public from harmful material is a social problem, not a technical problem.
“The freedom of speech implications are huge because it means that any future government can censor basically any sites, including those with differing political opinions,” said Elena Kelareva of the activist group Australians Against Internet Censorship (AAIC).
The Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) blacklist stands at 1300 websites. Most of these contain child pornography, violence, terrorist-related and other illegal content.
Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, wants to add another 10,000 to the list, including sites about euthanasia, anorexia and online gambling.
The list of banned websites will not be made publicly available.
The media has compared the censorship plan to China’s Great Firewall. At present, China, Burma, Iran and Saudi Arabia are some of the countries that have mandatory Internet censorship.
“The main similarity [with China] is that it’s a secret [blacklist] that you can’t opt out of,” said Ms Kelareva.
Countries such as the UK and Canada currently have optional filtering aimed at preventing accidental access.
The issue has inspired some Australians to join activist groups such as AAIC, which formed in November. Public demonstrations will take place on December 13 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart and Adelaide.
“Most of us do not have activist experience. We just care very strongly about this one single issue. So we decided to organise protests and just do whatever we can to stop this legislation from happening,” Ms Kelareva said.
E Companies Concerned
Experts, including Electronic Frontiers Australia, have stated that current technology is not advanced enough to accurately filter sites. Additionally, file-sharing programs will not be censored.
The filtering systems could also slow Internet speeds by an average of 30 per cent.
Internet service provider iiNet, which has volunteered to conduct the pilot run due to begin on December 24, has expressed concerns about the plan’s viability.
“iiNet has serious concerns about the usefulness of both filtering and also a trial. iiNet does not believe filtering is the solution to the Government’s objective,” as stated on the company’s website.
International lobby group Netchoice, whose membership includes eBay, AOL Time Warner and Oracle, also opposes the plan.
A number of specialists, including iiNet, say that filtering will encourage people to learn advanced technologies to bypass the system. They believe the money would be better spent on educating parents about Internet safety.
The initial setup will cost $125.8 million over four years.
Shaolin Temple franchises out kung-fu monks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3525878/Shaolin-Temple-franchises-out-kung-fu-monks.html
Ten Shaolin monks have been dispatched to Kunming Photo: EPA
China's Shaolin Monastery, famed for its monks’ expertise at kung-fu, is to take over four other Buddhist temples in the country in a 'franchise' scheme.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 4:03PM GMT 26 Nov 2008
Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin, said he had signed a 20-year contract to manage the Tuwang, Fading, Miaozhan and Guangyin temples in Kunming.
Ten monks have already been dispatched from Shaolin, in Zhengzhou near Beijing, to the temples, which are near China's borders with Burma, Laos and Vietnam.
"The move will help to increase the influence of Shaolin," said a spokesman for the temple, which is famed for the kung-fu skills of its warrior monks and the "integration of Zen and martial arts".
The monks will introduce features of Shaolin to the Kunming temples, which have seen low attendances in recent years. They will also work to maintain and upgrade the temples. In return, Shaolin will keep all revenues from donations, tourism and the sale of religious items.
The franchise is only the first step in an ambitious expansion plan which Abbot Shi outlined to Sohu.com, a Chinese news website. He said the "advanced management skills" of the 1,500-year-old Shaolin Monastery will be rolled out to more temples over the coming years in order to promote Zen Buddhism.
Abbot Shi's hard-nosed management of the temple has led to the nickname "the CEO monk" and has led to frequent accusations that the Shaolin temple is run more as a business than a spiritual concern.
In 1994, Shaolin was the first temple to register its name as a trademark.
Since then, it has established centres in Germany and Italy and sends it monks on world tours. In April, the monastery came under fire for spending three million yuan (£300,000) on two luxury lavatories for the monastery, complete with LCD television screens and team of smartly dressed cleaners.
At the same time, a company with close ties to the temple opened an online shop.
Sun Yuchun, a neighbour of the monastery who now lives in Beijing, alleged in the China Daily state newspaper: "The monks at the Shaolin Temple no longer practice real kung-fu, they just do it to make money."
However, a spokesman at the Buddhist Association of China said there is a long tradition of senior monks going to smaller temples to help them spread Buddhist teachings.
Letter from JAC-JAPAN TO Mr. Ban Kimon-2008-11-26
Ban Kimon
Secretary General
The United Nations
November 25, 2008
Horourable General Secretary,
We are pro-democracy activists who are resding in Japan and comprising the 26 groups and representatives concerned with the Burma’s affairs.
As you know, the current situation in Burma cannot be said that it is heading to the path to the democratization. The Burma’s problem is very unique and the international society have tried to solve the problem. The United Nations has urged the military regime in Burma to dialogue with the the winner of 1990 elections and ethnic minorties. But no significant dialogue has been emerged among the political stake holders in Burma.
There are about 2000 political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi , 88 Generation Student leaders such as Mm Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, ethnic minority leaders such Khun Tun Co have been detained for prolong by unreasonable accused. They have demanded the military regime to start genuine dialogue to solve the county’s problems and the differences on the political
issues. The military regime has never responded with the constructive rather than the arrest of them.
Inrecent weeks detained 88 Generation Students leaders, members of the National League for Democracy, human rights activists, sanghas, lawyers and other activists were sentenced to long prison terms without fair trials and defences by the Burmese military regime. We strongly
believe that this kind of activitie of the regime shows that they will crush anyone who oppose its way to hold power forever.
The students leaders and other activists are not extremists. They are moderate, liberal, nonviolent activist who have demended to hold genuine dialogue to solve the Burma’s
problems. They are important for the democratization and consolidation of the democracy in the future Burma. They had launched a campaing, Open Heart Letter Campaign , that the people of Burma can express their feelings, desire and the difficulties that they have to face in their
daily life from January 2007 to March 2007.
The Burma Fund published the report “the findings in the Open Heart Letter campaign in 2007” on November 22, 2008. We are sending a copy of the report accompained with this letter to let you know how the people of Burma have suffered under the military dictatorship.
The 88 Generation Students leaders and other activists have dedicated to democracy and
human rights selflessly. They had already served long prison terms but now they once again sentenced by the military regime.
We would like to request your excellency to use your capacity effectively to release the political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, the 88 Generation Student leaders and the ethnic
minority leaders, other activists.
Your Faithfully,
Joint Action Committee
Tibetan Exiles’ Meeting Produces Comparisons with Burma -IRRAWADDY
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14686
By WAI MOE Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The week-long meeting of Tibetan exiles in Dharmsala, India, has inevitably drawn comparisons with the activities of Burma’s own exiled opposition community.
Tibet and Burma each have a government in exile. But some Burmese exiles and Burma scholars claim that while the Tibetan opposition in exile, led by the Dalai Lama, shows cohesion, the same cannot be said for Burma’s.
Criticism of the Burmese opposition in exile has grown recently, with complaints that it lacks unity and a united strategy, providing for dialogue between all groups.
One leading Burma expert, Mikael Gravers, associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, said there were naturally differences between opposition groups who have to act internally under constraint and those who can act more freely in the diaspora.
“They literally live in very different worlds,” he told The Irrawaddy in an email interview.
“In Burma, the repression is now as massive as ever seen,” said Gravers, author of National As Political Paranoia in Burma: An Essay on The Historical Practice of Power.“Thus, I think critics should consider if it is the failure of the opposition alone or the result of the repression which has silenced and split those who struggle for a change.”
In the late 1990s, there was a significant change in the Burmese exile movement with the formation of a Burmese government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB). Aung San Suu Kyi’s cousin, Sein Win, has led the NCGUB from the start. Observers say the NCGUB has yet to find a leadership role for the democracy movement in exile.
Apart from the NCGUB, there are several umbrella organizations within Burma’s exile movement, such as the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), the Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB), the Members of Parliamentary Union (MPU). They fall out from time to time—most recently when the NCGUB failed to cooperate with the NCUB in its action against the Burmese junta seat at the United Nations.
A NCUB secretary, Aung Moe Zaw, said the Burmese exile movement played a supporting role in the pro-democracy struggle, while the Tibetan opposition was centered in exile. “The nature of Burma’s democracy movement and Tibet’s one are not the same,” he said.
Although different Burmese exile groups were working under a collective leadership for democracy, the movement as a whole had failed to engage the participation of all Burmese exiles, Aung Moe Zaw said.
Despite the impression of unity given by the Tibetan exile movement, the Dalai Lama’s strategy for Tibet, calling for autonomy and not independence, came in for criticism at the Dharmsala meeting.
Critics questioned this so-called “middle way.” Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, told The Associated Press ahead of the meeting: "We need to have a strategy. It's the middle way right now. But that has been a failure.
"We have history on our side; we have truth on our side. We know the Chinese—there's no way we can live under China.”
The Dalai Lama claimed at the end of the meeting that he had majority support for his “middle way path to the Tibetan issue."
The meeting left open, however, the options of demanding independence or self-determination if China fails to grant Tibet autonomy.
China has occupied Tibet since 1950 and brutally suppressed a Tibetan uprising in 1959. The Dalai Lama fled to India and formed the Tibetan exiled government in Dharmsala.
In March this year, five months before the Beijing Olympics, Tibetan protestors, led by Buddhist monks, challenged Chinese rule. The uprising was crushed by Chinese troops—with the kind of brutality employed by Burmese security forces to suppress Burma’s own uprising in September 2007.
Obama's Foreign Policy: Buying in at the Bottom
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811u/obama-hillary-kaplan
In the spring of 1977, Menachem Begin was elected prime minister of Israel and surprised everyone by choosing as his foreign minister not someone from his own Likud Party, but a star of the opposing Labor Party, Moshe Dayan. It proved a brilliant choice, as Dayan helped direct the peace process with Egypt that culminated with the Camp David accords.
In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States, and rather than choose as his secretary of state someone from among his own supporters, he chose Henry Kissinger, a supporter of Nixon’s arch-rival, Nelson Rockefeller. Again, that proved a fortuitous choice, as Kissinger helped orchestrate a rapprochement with China, as well as accords in the Middle East and with the Soviet Union.
President-elect Barack Obama has now done something similar, picking a rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, to be his secretary of state, rather than someone from among his own supporters. It could also end up a fortuitous choice. Clinton may not be as steeped in foreign policy expertise as a Dayan or a Kissinger, but neither is she a neophyte. Moreover, she will build a strong team at State from among her own supporters, notably former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
But the real reason that Obama and Clinton might enjoy success is something that goes barely mentioned in the media. Obama and Clinton are buying into a bottomed-out market vis-à-vis America’s position in the world. It is as if they will be buying stock after the market has crashed, and just at the point when a number of factors are already set in motion for a recovery. For President George W. Bush did not just damage America’s position in the world, he has also, over the past two years, quietly repositioned himself as a realist in foreign policy, and that, coupled with a bold new strategy in Iraq, known as the “surge,” has poised America for a diplomatic rebound, which the next administration will get the credit for carrying out.
Consider the following:
Iraq is on the mend, with local and national elections scheduled for 2009 and 2010 respectively, which could well solidify our withdrawal under better-than-previously-expected circumstances. Afghanistan is not on the mend, but Obama will have the benefit of moving more troops there from an improved Iraq, as well as putting into place the new strategy of Army Gen. David Petraeus, who has just taken over Central Command, giving Petraeus responsibility not just for Iraq, but for the Greater Middle East. Moreover, Al-Qaeda may be on the run, thanks to a quiet agreement that President Bush negotiated recently with Pakistan for aerial strikes against enemy targets inside Pakistani territory. Then there is Iran, perhaps about to become more reasonable, given the collapse in the price of oil. Syria has been subtly re-engaged by both America and Europe, and may be about to inch away from Iran’s orbit. And Arab-Israeli peace negotiations have been making a little headway over the course of 2008, even as there has been almost no coverage of it. Here, too, Team Obama is poised to get the credit for break-throughs.
Indeed, the Middle East may just possibly be on the brink of a positive rearranging of pieces over the next few years, thanks to a new American president with the clout derived from high approval ratings both domestically and internationally, that will, in turn, affect decision-making in places like Teheran and Damascus, whose citizenries likely have a higher opinion of Obama than they have of their own leaders. Do not underestimate the importance of a popular American president coupled with increased stability in Iraq, which will be progressing from one democratic election to another.
Then there's China, India, and Russia. China and the United States may be about to move closer together, thanks to the world economic crisis, which now increases the degree to which each of these two great powers will depend on the other. In India, Bush has left a legacy of improved relations, thanks in no small measure to the recently concluded nuclear pact. And Obama’s promise to engage Russia, while perhaps calling a halt to NATO expansion - even as Russia is weakened by falling oil prices and a negative international reaction to its adventure in Georgia – could signal improved ties on that score. And improved ties with Russia could mean more Russian pressure on Iran.
In South America, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez has become measurably more unpopular according to recent polls, even as he, too, is weakened by falling oil prices. Obama can also look forward to the end of the Castro regime in Cuba and that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe over the next four years. Burma may be edging towards a transition away from its aging, implacable dictator, Than Shwe. North Korea is a dicey call, as Kim Jong Il continues to manipulate negotiations, but the overall trend there is in the direction of a comprehensive agreement.
So, yes, this may be a market where buyers are once again starting to trickle in, signifying that a bottom has been reached. Good timing for Hillary.
Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
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