GUARDIAN Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:40:00 GMT
Ma Ying-jeou struck an economic deal and established direct postal and air links with Beijing, reducing tensions in the region
The rain that swept the city streets, blurring lights and muffling the blare of klaxons, perhaps helped to dampen passions. Outside the Kuomintang's Taipei headquarters, the victors smiled under thin plastic hoods, cheering in relief as much as in celebration. Across town, the defeated opposition's supporters seemed subdued.
Taiwanese politics are vibrant, emotional, sometimes dirty and occasionally violent. Some might have expected stronger reactions after a race too close to call culminated in yesterday's re-election of incumbent Ma Ying-jeou, who has overseen an unprecedented rapprochement with China.
But the muted response to his victory – he took 51.6% of the vote to challenger Tsai Ing-wen's 45.6% – echoed an unusually calm campaign. Some observers think this youthful democracy's fifth presidential election offers hope that its politics are........
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GUARDIAN Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:00 GMT
The Taiwan elections matter, especially in a region where so many of the players are going through changes of regime
The Taishang, the million Taiwanese who work in China, are rushing back home to vote in Saturday's presidential and legislative elections, urged on by their mainland bosses to vote for the incumbent nationalist candidate because he has established calmer cross-strait relations. They will be carried on their way by discounted tickets, extra flights and paid holidays, in the organisation of which China is only too keen to collaborate. How things have changed.
Not all Taishang will necessarily vote for the incumbent Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang. Taiwan's founding existential issue, its relationship with China, is nowadays only one of a number on the campaign agenda. If you take China's definition of independence, both Mr Ma and his challenger Tsai Ing-wen, from the Democratic Progressive party, are pro-independence. They may disagree on the eventual long-term........
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GUARDIAN Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:05:12 GMT
Edmund White explores the geometries of gay-straight friendship in this engaging and often erotic novel
Can a gay man and a straight man be friends? Can their sexualities coexist comfortably? These questions, articulated a little more subtly, are at the heart of Edmund White's new novel – his first since 2007's intricate Hotel de Dream.
It starts in the 1960s, well before the Stonewall riots, and ends in the 80s, as Aids begins to devastate gay America. Jack Holmes is a Wasp, forced by his father to go to university in Michigan rather than taking up a place at "pinko" Harvard. He studies Chinese art; the Chinese part of this is a sop to his father's nervous vision of the future. From university, Jack moves to New York, a city that impresses him with its atmosphere of contingency, and he lurches between a somewhat buttoned-up heterosexuality and the shadowlands of gay culture – being allegedly better qualified for the latter on account of his prodigious endowment.
With his........
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GUARDIAN Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:56:43 GMT
Called 'Only One', it is indeed the only one: this paid-for TV ad is the last thing between him and elimination from the GOP raceWho
It is that rarest of political beasts, the lesser spotted Jon Huntsman campaign TV ad. Huntsman is the almost forgotten man of the 2012 GOP race. In a party that has tacked way to the right, Huntsman is the sort of guy moderate Republicans should like. He's a former Utah governor and ex-ambassador to China, who pointedly says he believes in science when it comes to things like global warming. He's a Mormon but does not make a big deal of his religious beliefs. He's clever, articulate and says America has lost faith in its political system.
He's lived and worked abroad. He even speaks some Chinese. In a race dominated by insular, rabid rightwingers, some of whom did not know what Libya was or exactly which government departments they wanted to cut, Huntsman comes off as the voice of reason. Which, of course, is why he is doing so terribly........
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ECONOMIST Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:00:48 GMT
Democracy, Chinese-style LIKE broadcasters anywhere, Chinese television executives fret constantly over such things as an evolving media landscape, competition from online providers, and the viability of their business models. Now they have a new worry: how to make their prime-time offerings less entertaining.According to an order that took effect on January 1st, China’s 34 satellite television stations must limit “excessive entertainment” and “vulgar” content. This means cutting back severely on their most popular, low-cost and lucrative programming. “Super Girl”, a much watched singing contest, is no more, after officials accused it of being overlong and of poisoning youth.The order from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television limits what broadcasters may air during the prime-time hours from 7.30pm to 10pm. That period, known in China as “Gold Time,” must now include two 30-minute news briefings, and no more than 90 minutes of the lighter shows that China’s.......
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GUARDIAN Sat, 31 Dec 2011 11:33:17 GMT
Bus driver from Guangdong dies after testing positive for H5N1 strain, despite having had no apparent contact with poultry
A Chinese man diagnosed with the country's first case of bird flu in more than a year has died in the southern city of Shenzhen.
The 39-year-old bus driver was admitted to hospital with pneumonia but tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus.
The strain has a high mortality rate, killing up to 60% of infected humans.
The man, surnamed Chen, developed a fever on 21 December and was admitted to hospital on Christmas Day. Local health officials said 120 people who had close contact with Chen have not developed any abnormal symptoms.
The Chinese health ministry has informed the World Health Organisation about the case, health officials added.
During the month prior to his fever, Chen, apparently had no direct contact with poultry and did not travel out of Shenzhen.
The city, home to 10 million people, is separated by a small river from Hong Kong, where.....
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GUARDIAN Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:00:01 GMT
China sees Ethiopia as a land of business opportunities, but the African country remains in charge of any deals
In late November, Habros Seguar, an Ethiopian industry ministry official, told me how the ministry had just landed a major Chinese investment. During his August trip to China, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had visited the Pearl River Delta, where higher costs are driving manufacturers offshore. He invited the Chinese to visit Ethiopia. Among other things, he wanted them to look at a leather-based industrial cluster Ethiopia is developing to better utilise its livestock population, Africa's largest.
Within weeks, a delegation of Chinese had arrived in Addis Ababa. Among them was the privately owned Huajian Group, which produces 16 million pairs of leather shoes per year. By October, Huajian had decided to invest in Ethiopia.
Huajian's general manager arrived in November, hired 50 Ethiopian technical school graduates and sent them off to China for training. "The........
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