[update - CM1] bumping because this deserves a second look even if it is a quick post.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell

The Chinese Government has described the view that climate change is not man-made as a marginal and "extreme" outlook.

According to Xie Zhenhua, a deputy director at China's powerful National Development and Reform Commission, climate change is a fact based on long-term observation in many countries.

At the annual session of China's National People's Congress, he said that those who advocate that climate change is not man-made are holding an extreme and marginal view.

He said that the majority of the world's scientists believed that climate change has been caused by burning fossil fuels.

He and other officials said that more work needed to be done to ensure that scientific data on climate change was watertight, but the world had no choice but to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

Mr Xie said climate change is not only something that ordinary Chinese people can feel and experience every day, but that it may soon have a huge impact on China's food security and even its economic stability.

They also stated that there is some differing of opinion on what is causing this, however that sensible policy is to recognize and begin to take steps to mitigate the risk.

Those willing to report news have always taken risks not because they are adventure seekers or egomaniacs its because they believe the public has the right to know. History is littered with governments and regimes that have sought to silence the media.
Even with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact media repression continues unabated. Asia has a large number of governments which repress the ability of the media to report on a wide range of issues. China goes to great lengths to subdue the press. Here are few examples from a report complied by the International Federation of Journalists (pdf file) for 2009.

Xinjiang Riots

Here is a pretty creepy look at the all consuming commercialization of kids in America:

In some ways children in America are left so unprotected from corporate abuse that their lives are all too often put at risk:

Via Bloomberg

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A 32-year-old herdsman died in Ziketan in Qinghai province, the provincial health department said in a statement dated yesterday. The other 11 infected people are mostly relatives of the deceased and are in “stable condition” in a designated hospital, according to the statement.
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According to the WHO (via the Bloomberg article), Pneumatic Plague is caused by the same bacteria as Bubonic Plague, but differs in that

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If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be treated with antibiotics. Pneumonic plague, on the other hand, is one of the most deadly infectious diseases and patients can die 24 hours after infection, according to the WHO.
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Anyone who was traveling in or around the Ziketan area since July 16, and who subsequently develops a cough or fever, should seek treatment at a hospital.

And here we thought we only had to worry about swine flu.

ARTICLE LINK ....

I feel so much better now that one toy manufacturer has been held accountable...but I have questions. One being that I don't remember previously hearing any rumblings to the growing increase of Autism diagnoses and lead in children's toys. But then, maybe I haven't been paying attention.

Mattel settles with 39 states over tainted toys

If only we could take all that Solar Energy baking the World's Deserts,

Bottle it up, (using modern technology),

and send it to the Metropolitan areas, that run on Energy.

by Jeff Huber

Navy skippers immemorial wrote "He hit the deck running" on their new junior officers' fitness reports until the phrase became, well, ship-worn. You mean that the officer just checked aboard, seems eager, if a bit much so, has done a nice thing or two, but it's not time to recommend him either for your job or for immediate transfer to civilian command. In other words, it's an expression that sounds impressive but doesn't really mean anything, something common to at least 95 percent of Navy writing.

But the expression appears to mean something in the case of Barack Obama, whose orders just showed up on the message board, as we say in the NAV, and who doesn’t even check aboard for two more months. In the past week he's made three significant interrelated foreign policy moves that involve Iraq, Iran and Russia that have potential to look good, go bad or turn ugly, depending on how he follows up on them.

CBS Interactive/CNET: '60 Minutes': Following the trail of toxic e-waste:

Jumped by a gang of men overseeing the e-waste operations who tried to take the CBS team's cameras, Pelley's crew managed to escape and bring back footage of the hazardous activities. .. The Chinese attackers were trying to protect a lucrative business of mining the e-waste . .

Fascinating read, with the full report coming this Sunday.

As the End of Bush Days draws near, the desperation and insanity of the administration and its neoconservative policies become more and more apparent. One of the most recent examples is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's address to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on June 3, where she once and for all crossed over to the dark side and swore fealty to Lord Cheney's quest to start a shooting war with Iran.

With Boobs-on-a-Billy-Goat Rice onboard the Cheney train, can Armageddon be far behind?

From the BBC:

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'Hundreds buried' by China quake

Almost 900 students have been buried by collapsed buildings during an earthquake in south-western China, state media reports.
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What a horrible start to the day, and to the week.

The BBC article quotes the following statistics for recent quakes in China:

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• March, 2008: 7.2 quake in Xinjiang - damage limited
• February 2003: 6.8 quake in Xinjiang - at least 94 dead, 200 hurt
• January 1998: 6.2 quake in rural Hebei - at least 47 dead, 2,000 hurt
• April 1997: 6.6 quake hits Xinjiang - 9 dead, 60 hurt
• January 1997: 6.4 quake in Xinjiang - 50 dead, 40 hurt

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In other news, US planes carrying aid land in Burma after days spent negotiating with the government, and a US researcher finds a way to kill stowaway plants and animals from marine ballast tanks:

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US researchers say they have developed an effective way to kill unwanted plants and animals that hitch a ride in the ballast waters of cargo tankers.

Tests showed that a continuous microwave system was able to remove all marine life within the water tanks.

The UN lists "invasive species" dispersed by ballast water discharges as one of the four main threats to the world's marine ecosystems.
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That's all I've got for now -- busy, busy day ahead -- but I'm sure there's a lot more.

Have at it. :)

You can rest easy. Political pundit and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan predicted on Sunday that there is a "fifty-fifty chance of U.S. air strikes on Iran by October." I just love the all out commitment involved in making a fifty-fifty prediction: there’s a hundred percent chance you’ll be right. Of course, the very fact that Pat Buchanan mentions something might happen means the odds are that it won’t.

Don’t get complacent, though. Just like the cataclysmic natural disaster that strikes every century or so, once in a blue moon it turns out that Pat Buchanan knew what the hell he was talking about.

Similarly, we might expect that the Bush administration knows that attacking Iran would be the worst imaginable thing they could do—for the Bush legacy, for U.S. foreign policy, and for stability in the Middle East. A strike on Iran would be an act of sheer lunacy; so the Bush administration might just try it.

“The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war.” – Quadrennial Defense Review Report (February 6, 2006)

“No nation has ever profited from a long war.” – Sun Tzu (long ago)

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report noted that it was “imperative” for the Department of Defense to “hedge against uncertainty over the next 20 years.” The DoD will have to hedge a sight longer than 20 years if John McCain gets himself elected in November. McCain has “no objection” to American troops staying in Iraq for a hundred, a thousand, or heck, make it an even million years. He’s not likely to meet a lot of resistance to that policy from the Pentagon. Ten thousand centuries’ worth of job security doesn’t grow on trees.

Our old playmates Russia and China won’t object to McCain’s plans for a million-year replay of the Cold War either. The only concern they have on that score is McCain’s penchant for either changing his mind or forgetting what he said in the first place.

Gabriel has graciously sent me another in depth and insightful piece on the Tibetan protests and riots as well as the Chinese predicament and possible solutions. Again, I'm posting it in full rather than attempt to reduce it to a few paragraphs and paraphrasings. Posted by permission. Images added by me.

Zhang Qingli, China’s Party boss in Tibet says: “We are engaged in a fierce battle of blood and fire with the Dalai clique, a life-and-death struggle between the foe and us.” At the very moment China’s Communist Party denounces the Dalai Lama with renewed spleen, as a devil and a wolf, the Dalai Lama offers to fly to Beijing, to resolve the crisis. Is his timing utterly inept, or does he know something that has not yet occurred to the rest of us? Tibet is in crisis, the Chinese Communist Party leadership is in crisis, utterly unable to understand events and bereft of new ideas. In Newsweek, Melinda Liu says: “Can Chinese officials put the entire roof of the world into lockdown? According to one foreign analyst involved in monitoring Olympic preparations, who requested anonymity for security reasons, ‘They’re simply just freaking out.’” The authority of the Dalai Lama among Tibetans is in crisis, the global Tibetan exile is reinventing itself; and the world looks on, unable to read this old volcano now erupting anew.

Originally posted 2008-03-18 17:23:4: bumped and promoted...and thanks to Yetimonk for bringing this here -- cho

The Dalai Lama recently criticized Tibetan violence on both sides and said that if it continued that he would resign as the Tibetan Exile Governments political leader. He is under some pressure from impatient younger Tibetans who want full independence now and are willing to fight for it.

An excellent article by Gabriel Lafitte at NewMatilda.com, advisor to the Tibetan Government in Exile, about the protests and riots, and what it means to the Tibetans themselves. What follows is his article in full (reprinted with permission).

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The Tibetan revolt, like those of two and five decades ago, will be crushed by the overwhelming might of the Chinese military. No match could be more unequal: maroon-clad nuns and monks versus the machinery of oppression of the global rising power. In recent months, fast-response mobile tactical squads whose sole purpose is to quell the masses have been overtly rehearsing on the streets of Tibetan towns for just what they are now doing.

What is the point of revolt if it is almost certainly suicidal?