Ai Weiwei, the sensational Chinese artist who often criticizes China’s government, is in trouble again. Last time, he was detained for three months for “tax evasion.” This time, an artistic photo of him and four women, all nude, titled “One Tiger, Eight Breasts” is deemed pornography. The government is now…
Full Article China Blog Blotter – Issue #4: Nudity is Not Porn…On the InternetA widely publicized but supposedly secret memo appears to show the country’s civilian leaders all but begging Washington to protect them from a punitive military coup. The scandal is now being called “Memogate” in the press.
Full Article PAKISTAN: Is It Military Vs Civilians– Or ‘The News’ Vs ‘The Dawn’According to a recent panel, the Singaporean parliament’s General Elections this May were heavily influenced by the country’s proliferating use of social media.
Full Article SINGAPORE: Social Media Impacts Parliamentary General ElectionsUpcoming Bollywood horror film “Kaun Hai Waha” has been spooked by an unanticipated reproach from the organization Catholic Secular Forum (CSF), which claims the film is filled with anti-Catholic imagery and symbols.
Full Article INDIA: Bollywood Horror-Film Ads Shocks a Catholic OrganizationTensions between the international NGO Greenpeace and the government of Indonesia have continued to escalate in recent weeks over increasing deforestation practices across the country.
Full Article INDONESIA: Not So GreenpeaceKim In-Suk’s award winning 1995 novel, The Long Road, is the lone work of Korean expatriate fiction that has been translated into English.
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: Kim In-suk’s Expat Odyssey The Long Road is Now Available in English“We request the immediate and unconditional release of de Nguyen Tien Trung. The accusations made against him are a total fabrication,” says the press freedom organization.
Full Article VIETNAM: ‘Reporters Without Borders’ Calling for Support of BloggerThe film “Yes or No” — Thailand’s first lesbian film — has been chosen to open the 22nd Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film festival in Hong Kong alongside the Vietnamese film “Lost in Paradise.”
Full Article THAILAND: Thai ‘Yes or No’ Will Open Gay Film FestivalThe Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) has recently joined with seventeen other foreign universities to set up Confucius Institutes, non-profit institutions that promote Chinese language and culture internationally, in fourteen countries overseas.
Full Article CHINA: Confucius Institute Prospers as China Attempts to Change Foreign MisconceptionsNorth Korean citizens are stranded in the Middle East, specifically Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Kuwait. They are being prevented from returning home, for fear that they would spread news of the social unrest in the region throughout North Korea.
Full Article NORTH KOREA: Communist Country’s Citizens Stranded Across the Middle EastThis past week marks the two-year anniversary of the massacre in the town of Ampatuan in northern Mindanao. Fifty-eight people were killed in the massacre, thirty-three of them, journalists.
Full Article PHILIPPINES: Gunning for Journalists?
Dr. Vandana Shiva, author, physicist, philosopher, environmental activist and eco-feminist came to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles on November 1, 2011 to receive the Navin and Pratima Doshi Bridgebuilder Award…
Full Article INDIA: Vandana Shiva Video InterviewEven before U.S. President Barack Obama’s Air Force One touched down in Australia this week the trip was causing quite the media frenzy. An article in the Herald Sun, one of the widest read newspapers in Australia, trumpeted the fact that Obama was to be welcomed with a jar of Marmite, a popular native breakfast spread…
Full Article AUSTRALIA: Down-Under Goes Over the Top Over ObamaThe Ministry of Culture recently passed an amendment to the Printing Act of 2007 that makes the national police chief head of Thailand’s censorship board. The Bangkok Post, Thailand’s leading English-language daily newspaper, referred to this move as “a step backwards and aimed at empowering the government to take complete control of the media.”
Full Article THAILAND: Transfer of Censorship Powers to Police Criticized