Last week, there was a lot of publicity about a shipment of arms from China destined to be delivered to Zimbabwe being stopped when local trade unionists refused to offload the shipment in Durban.
Mozambique also refused to offload the shipment, and China, after a lot of international pressure, seemed to agree that the arms would […]

read more from this topic.....

The recent news reports about the Chinese hackers invading the Indian cyber space has opened up the debate on “Cyber Wars” yet again.  While USA is already the global leader in military warfare and has also formally structured a presence in Cyber Warfare through the formation of  a Cyber Command, China appears to be challenging […]

read more from this topic.....

As a doc, during the summer we would often have “stomach flu” outbreaks caused by viruses called “Enteroviruses” which merely means intestine virus. Usually it meant mild diarrhea, and it was worse in young kids. One enterovirus, however, caused only mild stomach upset, but caused lots of tiny canker sores in the mouth, and small […]

read more from this topic.....

That heparin contamination that killed a few dozen folks might have been a deliberate act, not an accident…well, duh…
I noted that two weeks ago…
And this is on the heels of the fake protein in cat/dog food, and the lead in the kids’s toys.
But in Africa and Asia, things are worse. The tainted cough medicine that […]

read more from this topic.....

Rice prices have skyrocketed from 18-25 pesos/kg to 24-32 p/kg at the local Palenke.
For farmers and workers who average 100 pesos a day (roughly two dollars), this puts a strain on their budget. So to prevent rice riots, the President is planning to allow poor people to buy subsidized food, and because of the worry […]

read more from this topic.....

Twenty-four babies, and forty children under the age of six, were among some 250 people rounded up on Friday, and crammed into “filthy cells” at a small prison in one of Harare’s southern suburbs.  (Christina Lamb and John Makura, Sunday Times.)  Their parents were accused by police of “voting incorrectly” during the elections.  Meanwhile in […]

read more from this topic.....

Some 1,500 Chinese Americans protested outside CNN’s offices on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood - a similar demonstration also occurred at the cable news outfit’s Atlanta headquarters – demanding that commentator Jack Cafferty be fired over these comments he made on “The Situation Room” April 9th:
“We continue to import their junk with the lead paint […]

read more from this topic.....

Recent headlines have focussed on the “cargo of death” shipped from China to Zimbabwe last week, but in an even more sinister development, Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of a Zimbabwe town… (Daily Mail)  Chinese and North Korean troops were also in evidence alongside Mugabe’s own troops when he attended a rally […]

read more from this topic.....

Offstumped question for the new week:
Is a benign neighborhood a pre-requisite for a functional and sustainable democracy ?
It is definitely true of all of Western Europe. The more recent converts to democracy in Eastern Europe are still sorting things through but by and large the unstable ones are those with troubled borders and not so […]

read more from this topic.....

With China as the location of this year’s Olympic Games, the recent crackdown in Tibet and alleged lack of general human rights in Mainland China are creating protests around the world.  These protests follow the Olympic torch on its international publicity tour.  Although supporters from both pro-China and pro-Tibet groups have been at the protests, […]

read more from this topic.....

Dangerous and counterfeit products, hacking government systems and espionage all have one thing in common, they are likely to originate from China.
The latest example of this is being reported by the AP:
Two men attempting to board a plane to China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage were arrested on Saturday, a […]

read more from this topic.....

The NYTimes has a nice “summary” article on the heparin scare today.
They do a nice job, but they seem to assume that the episode is an accident, so the article it points to the FDA for failing to regulate the drug manufacturing process.
Dr. Roger L. Williams, chief executive of the United States Pharmacopeia, which […]

read more from this topic.....

Here in the Philippines, Ampalaya is a common vegetable for our meals, but it also has a long use in Chinese herbal medicine for diabetes. The problem is that nobody knows why it works, or if it works, but nevertheless it is one of the herbs sold over the counter here in the Philippines.
The Philippine […]

read more from this topic.....

During the debate some years ago over whether or not to continue to grant China “Most Favored Nation” trading status, the pro side of the argument included the idea that if we isolate China, their actions against Christians, and the religious in general, would get worse.  They could do it outside of the view of […]

read more from this topic.....

The tainted heparin scandal widens.
An article posted on Medscape reveals:
The heparin-contamination saga is continuing, with the latest countries to recall products being France, Italy, and Denmark… the heparin medicinal products from Rotexmedica and the heparin API from Opocrin had all been manufactured using products sourced originally from China by four Chinese companies…
Meanwhile, another US heparin […]

read more from this topic.....

People have died, and the case, which started out as an accident inquiry, and then morphed into a industrial error, has now become a homicide investigation.
And the culprit is corporate corruption, and a culture of corruption that extends into the highest level of government.
But I”m getting ahead of my story.
The story started last November, when […]

read more from this topic.....

Enough with the sack stuff. The real eye opener about Eliot Spitzer isn’t his compulsion to heave ho, but his willingness to disguise payments via an international criminal enterprise that specialized in money laundering. To make matters worse, Governor Spitzer had presidential ambitions. Meaning a guy with exploitable criminal connections might have wound up in […]

read more from this topic.....

The Holy See is watching events unfold in Tibet very quietly and this author is quite sure there will be a statement from the Vatican Diplomatic Service shortly. Tibetans need reassurance that the prayers and hopes of the Catholic people are with the Tibetan people as they struggle with China’s martial crackdown in their mountain […]

read more from this topic.....

This article is a second release of this musing. It was published last June, but should have another revisit by Catholic readers. In light of the recently listed “sins” that include those against the environment. HJMN
There are always ways that the Catholic Church can join in the environmental movement in small but yet effective ways. […]

read more from this topic.....

In the news, a small story talks about the Chinese stopping an airplane hijacking.
There  are reports that the Chinese are worried about more attacks during the Oympics
Wang said the group had been trained by and was following the orders of a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, […]

read more from this topic.....

There is another scandal starting to rear it’s head here in the Philippines: The possibility that the Arroyo government exchanged claims of Philippine sovereignty to China in exchange for loans.
In a single word: Petroleum. The scattered Spratly island area of the South China Sea is claimed by VietNam, China and the Philippines.
[…]

read more from this topic.....

The Times of India reports that the atheist government of China is set to “implement the regulations on religious affairs” in order to promote “social harmony.”
The statement that notified the world of this new Chinese government policy came from Jia Qinglin, the chairman of something called the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political […]

read more from this topic.....

There are an estimated 750,000 Chinese settlers in Africa, and one Chinese expert has suggested that China will need to send 300 million people to Africa (UK’s Sunday Times, China’s New Frontier).  Very few of the 750,000 Chinese already in Africa speak English or any African language.
 
In June, and again in November, 2007, I wrote […]

read more from this topic.....

He is only 37 years old born in 1971 and he is already making news taking on the Manmohan Singh Government’s pusillanimity in taking on China on Arunachal Pradesh.
Arun Shourie in yesterday’s Indian Express had a very concerning piece titled “Shilpa Shetty trumps Arunachal” on how the dimwits in the media have been obscuring the […]

read more from this topic.....

Two weeks ago, I wrote that a former finance minister in Mugabe’s government was rumoured to be planning to stand against Mugabe in the elections scheduled for March 29.  Now it is out in the open, and it seems that Simba Makoni really is going to challenge Mugabe.  How he will do this is still […]

read more from this topic.....

My husband Lolo was watching the news yesterday, but this time it wasn’t super Tuesday, or even Brittney Spears.
There was “Jun” Lozada, surrounded by nuns and priests, having a press conference.
And later that day, he was there again, being grilled by the Philippine Senate about a broadband agreement with China that was so full of […]

read more from this topic.....

(London, UK) The Autism Awareness Campaign UK is urging the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rt.Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of York, Rt.Rev.Dr.John Sentamu, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormack Murphy O’Connor and other senior church leaders to speak out on the suffering of some parents, carers and people with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome on Autism Sunday […]

read more from this topic.....

Autism Campaigners around the world are appealing for greater support on Autism Sunday 2008 - the International Day of Prayer for Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome.
Churches of all denominations will be remembering over 60 million people worldwide who are on the autism spectrum, in prayer.Parents groups and charities have been calling for more support and better […]

read more from this topic.....

Tough as Jell-O as usual, the German government has once again “normalized” its relations with China after straining them severely by having had the gall to recently meet with and actually even talk to Tibetan terrorist separatist Buddhist hate monger the Dalai Lama himself. To celebrate the occasion, the Chancellery has made public a photograph […]

read more from this topic.....

The USA (and the rest of the world) is fascinated by the US Presidential election primaries – mostly what’s going on between Hillary Clinton and “upstart” Barack Hussein Obama right now. This is democracy at its best in what is probably the only country left in the world where democracy works (It’s a sick […]

read more from this topic.....