N.Y.U. to Offer Classes on Occupy Wall Street

Protesters living inside the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park in October.

Occupy Wall Street is becoming a teachable moment for New York City college students.
New York University plans to offer two classes next semester on the protest movement, whose participants frequently marched and rallied around the school’s Greenwich Village campus this fall.
The for-credit undergraduate class, offered through the university’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, examines economy and culture. The class has a rotating focus, and for the coming semester, it will be called “Why Occupy Wall Street? The History and Politics of Debt and Finance.”
“The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are catching on across the United states, linking to popular discontent with economic inequality and financial greed and malfeasance around the globe,” says a flyer for the course distributed by its professor, Lisa Duggan. “This course is designed to provide a background for these momentous events.”
According to the flyer–which depicts a raised, clenched fist holding a pencil, a play on the movement’s symbol–Duggan plans to bring in guest speakers from Occupy Wall Street to “offer the broad view of the meaning and impact of the movement.”
Also next semester, another professor is teaching a graduate-level seminar on the demonstration.

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Posted in: Society,USA

Activists: Tibetan Dies After Self-immolation

(Breakingnews)
Tibetan groups in exile say a former Buddhist monk has died several days after setting himself on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet.
Activists said Friday that Tenzin Phuntsog died of his burns in a hospital in Tibet on December 6. Chinese officials have not confirmed his death.
Rights groups said Tenzin Phuntsog had set himself on fire on December 1 near the Karma monastery in Tibet's Chamdo area. The rights groups say he had been scattering leaflets criticizing Beijing and shouting anti-China slogans just before he set himself on fire. Chinese police put out the flames and took him to hospital.
Ten former or current monks and two nuns have set themselves on fire in ethnically Tibetan parts of southwest China this year to protest religious repression. Many were from the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province.
Tibetan rights groups say Tibetans set themselves on fire as a result of increased desperation at Chinese repression.
China has denounced the self-immolations and is accusing Tibetan exiles of encouraging them. The government says Tibetans enjoy religious freedom and that the state is investing in developing their areas.
In India, where many Tibetans live in exile, protesters gathered outside a hotel in New Delhi where China and India held defense talks demanding freedom for Tibet.
source: http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/12/09/activists-tibetan-dies-after-self-immolation/

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Posted in: China,Politics,Tibet,violence

China WTO Anniversary Marked by Progress, Challenges

Forklift arranges shipping containers near Shanghai port, China, March 2, 2011 (file photo).

It was 10 years ago this Sunday, Dec. 11th, when China joined the World Trade Organization.

Since then, the country has grown to become the world's second largest economy and millions of Chinese have been lifted out of extreme poverty. But while China made dramatic reforms after joining the global trade club, analysts say the process of moving away from being a state-planned to a more open economy has not been a definitive success, and many challenges remain.

The view from Beijing

From China’s perspective, the past decade has been a period of historic change.

According to a recent opinion piece in the state-run China Daily, since becoming a WTO member, China has become the world’s number one investment destination, with outbound investment nearly doubling every two years since 2002. Chinese companies, the article adds, are increasingly making their mark, with 54 now listed among the world's Fortune 500 companies, compared to 12 when it joined in 2001.

Such rapid growth has had a dramatic impact on the global economy and surprised Chinese officials.

"I have to say that exceeds far more what we expected at that time, especially the size of China's economy, the size of China's exports and imports, and the market expansion of some of the industries, like cars, from two million to 18 million within ten years," says Long Yongtu, chief negotiator of China’s accession to the WTO.
Lingering U.S. trade deficit

But China's economic rise comes at a cost to the United States and other traditional manufacturing nations. The country's massive production of inexpensive exports means other nations' goods are undercut, causing their industries to suffer.

U.S. exports to China are growing, but the trade deficit with China has boomed. There is also concern among WTO member nations that while Chinese companies are gaining more access to the global economy, foreign companies in China are having a different experience.

Michael Punke, U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization, says that over the past five years other members of the WTO have seen a troubling trend of intensified state intervention in the Chinese economy.

Many of the trade disputes with China can be traced, he says, to Chinese policies that promote or protect state-owned and domestic enterprises.

Patrick Mulloy, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, says the issue of forced technology transfers - the contract-based acquisition rather than domestic development of new technologies - is of particular concern.

"The government will say, you want to be a friend of China, put more manufacturing here, put more research and development here, be a friend of China, help us grow our economy," he says. "And the companies will say, 'Well, I might be able to afford to give them this type of technology because I am really holding this part back,' but then you have 100 companies transferring technology and helping China move up the food chain. It’s good for China and if I were them I would be doing the same thing, but it’s not good for us and it’s contrary to China’s WTO commitments."

Investor complaints

Foreign companies operating in China frequently raise concerns about the myriad licenses that businesses are required to apply for, and the problems faced receiving them in a fair and timely manner.

Undervaluation of Chinese currency has also long been considered an obstacle to free trade, and U.S. lawmakers are working to pass legislation that seeks to punish Beijing for keeping its currency artificially low, which makes the cost of its exports cheaper.

China's industrial subsidies also remain a contentious issue, which, competitors say, make its products cheaper and more attractive to buyers.

And despite Beijing’s 2006 pledge to allow foreign credit card companies access to its market, they have yet to deliver on the promise.

Mulloy says such barriers to trade demand action.

"These are things this country really has to get to grips with and understand," says Mulloy. "China is not our enemy, but they have a strategy and they are moving their people up a food chain of economic growth as quickly as they can and we have no counter strategy and that’s our problem."
A topic of debate

With U.S. unemployment high and the economy waffling, trade with China has become an increasingly prevalent subject of debate in U.S. campaign politics -- a topic that's likely to persist as the 2012 presidential election draws near.

Mitt Romney, one candidate for the Republican Party nomination, has repeatedly criticized China’s trade practices and says the U.S. is already in a trade war with the world’s second largest economy.

But Daniel Ikenson of the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., says these disputes are just part of the process and a good reason to have China in the WTO.

"The relationship is maturing. The world's second largest and largest economy has grown, [and] there are going to be frictions, they are going to be complaints," he says. "We've had many more trade disputes with Europe and Canada than with China. That's the way mature relations settle their differences."

He cites growing social unease in China and the government's ability to maintain control as a greater concern. While China continues to see rapid economic growth, there is also growing public discontent with corruption, environmental pollution and property policies and real estate properties.

If China implodes, Ikenson says, that will really have an adverse effect on the rest of the global economy.
Source: VOANEWS.COM

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Posted in: China,Society

Vietnam Benefiting From Closer Ties With U.S. Despite ‘Continued and Worsening Crackdown’ on Dissent

By Patrick Goodenough

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton applauds after signing a memorandum of understanding for U.S. support of HIV/AIDS programs in Vietnam, in Hanoi on Thursday, July 22, 2010. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – As the Obama administration pursues its “Pacific century” vision, some critics worry that one country with which it seeks to develop a new partnership is continuing to get away with human rights abuses, despite some modest signs of improvement.
Vietnam’s communist government over the summer and fall arrested at least 15 religious activists – members of the Catholic and Presbyterian churches – charging most under a controversial “subversion” article of the country’s penal code that carries a range of punishments up to the death penalty.
Ahead of Human Rights Day later this week, several members of Congress plan to introduce a resolution condemning what they call a “continued and worsening crackdown” against Vietnamese bloggers and democracy activists. They are urging Hanoi to repeal two penal code articles in particular.
Article 79, “Carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration,” provides for jail terms ranging from 12-20 years, life imprisonment or capital punishment for “organizers, instigators and active participants” and 5-15 years’ imprisonment for “accomplices.” Legal analysts say it makes no distinction between acts of terrorism and the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression.
Article 88, “Conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” provides for 3-12 years’ imprisonment for those convicted of activities including “spreading fabricated news in order to foment confusion among people” and “defaming the people’s administration.”
U.S. political, economic and military relations with Vietnam have improved significantly over the years since President Clinton in 2000 became the first president to visit the country since the Vietnam War.
Despite being a one-party state with a human rights record widely viewed as poor, Vietnam has benefited greatly from the developing ties. The U.S. in 2006 granted Hanoi permanent normal trade relations, paving the way for its accession to the World Trade Organization the following year.
The State Department in 2006 also removed Hanoi from a list of “countries of particular concern” for egregious abuses of freedom of religion, citing improvements. (Religious freedom advocacy groups opposed the move, pointing to ongoing abuses against Buddhists, Catholics and evangelicals.)
The deepening of bilateral relations has accelerated under the Obama administration, which is heavily promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a pact in the making that President Obama last month described as “our most ambitious trade agreement yet.”
Vietnam is one of the TPP’s nine current negotiating partners. All the others are democracies, except for Brunei, an Islamic sultanate.
The U.S. last month hosted the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu. In a speech on the summit sidelines, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang said the two countries “want to take the relationship to the next level and move forward on this strategic partnership.”
‘Incorrect information’
The State Department acknowledges that Vietnam has been backsliding on human rights. Its latest annual human rights report says that the regime has “increased measures to limit citizens’ privacy rights and freedom of the press, speech, assembly, movement, and association.”
Critics of the Hanoi regime have long contended that the U.S. could use its leverage more effectively to push for improvements.

FILE - In this April 4, 2011, file photo dissident lawyer Cu Huy Ha Vu is escorted by police out of a courtroom after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the state and sentenced to seven years in prison and three years of house arrest at the one-day trial in Hanoi, Vietnam. (AP Photo/Vietnam News Agency, Thong Nhat, File)

Last September 14 members of Congress from both parties wrote a letter to the new U.S. ambassador in Hanoi, David Shear, pressing for human rights to be an integral part of the bilateral relationship.
“Your appointment comes at a pivotal time as Vietnam pursues economic gains through its bilateral relations with the U.S. but continues to fail on what the United States regards as a priority: respect for the fundamental human rights of its citizens,” they wrote.
Beyond its borders, Vietnam’s performance in international forums has also not reflected its greatly improved relations with the West. At the U.N. it routinely votes with other non-democratic member states on issues of importance to the U.S.
Last year, on 13 key votes identified by the State Department as “issues which directly affected United States interests and on which the United States lobbied extensively,” Vietnam’s voting coincided with that of the U.S. only 18.2 percent of the time – less often than such countries as Libya, Zimbabwe and Burma, although more often than Iran and Cuba.
In an address on “America’s Pacific century,” delivered in Honolulu the same day as Sang’s speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did make a reference to Vietnam’s human rights situation.
“As we engage more deeply with nations with whom we disagree on issues like democracy and human rights, we will persist in urging them to reform,” she said. “For example, we have made it clear to Vietnam that if we are to develop a strategic partnership, as both nations desire, Vietnam must do more to respect and protect its citizens’ rights.”
On the eve of the APEC meetings, the State Department held the 16th round of annual human rights talks with Vietnamese officials in Washington DC
The State Department did not release much information from the two-day dialogue, which State Department spokesman Mark Toner said “certainly touched on religious freedom” and involved “very frank, candid exchanges.”
Toner’s Vietnamese counterpart, Luong Thanh Nghi, told a briefing in Hanoi later that the talks had included “frank discussions to clarify the truth on incorrect information that had not reflected the real situation in Vietnam,” according to state media.
Nonetheless, two positive signs have been reported in recent days.
An appeals court late last month reduced by half a three year sentence for subversion handed down to a Vietnamese-French blogger in 2010. Pham Minh Hoang will still have to serve three years of house arrest after his release from prison next month.
Le Cong Dinh, a human rights lawyer who called for political reforms and was sentenced last year to five years’ imprisonment under article 79, is reportedly to be released soon, his sister told Radio Free Asia last week.
“We welcome Secretary Clinton's attention to human rights in Vietnam and would like to see human rights further integrated into the bilateral relationship,” Duy Hoang, a U.S.-based spokesman for the banned pro-democracy group, Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform Party) told CNSNews.com on Monday.
“The United States should pursue deeper engagement with the Vietnamese people, especially civil society groups. Ultimately, only a free Vietnam can be a responsible economic and security partner in the region.”
Hoang said the government labels public criticism “anti-state propaganda,” and what it calls subversion “is really just Vietnamese citizens exercising their freedom of association and wanting to help shape the future of their own country.”

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Posted in: Asia,Society,USA,Vietnam

Eurozone leaders reach new deal without backing of Britain

EU leaders reach deal without Britain

(CNN) -- A majority of European leaders agreed early Friday on a new deal to try to resolve the continent's debt crisis, but Britain refused to back a broader treaty change.
The 17 members of the eurozone, which share the embattled single currency, reached a deal for a new intergovernmental treaty to deepen the integration of national budgets. Six other EU nations supported the deal.

"We're doing everything we can to save the euro," President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said at a news conference in Brussels following a marathon summit meeting of EU leaders.
But the new plan, which leaders are aiming to have ready by March, did not get the backing of Britain
Three other countries -- the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden -- said they are willing to consider the plan after consultations with their Parliaments.
"We would rather have reformed the treaty with 27 members," Sarkozy said. But Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain demanded an "unacceptable" opt out clause related to the financial services sector, Sarkozy said.

The British waiver would have "undermined a lot of what we've done to regulate the financial sector," Sarkozy said. Instead, the eurozone countries, along with "anyone who wants to join us," are pushing ahead with the new intergovermental treaty, he said.
"What is on offer isn't in Britain's interests, so I didn't agree to it," Cameron said at a briefing.
The new deal may raise concerns of the EU turning into a two-tier system, with some countries pursuing deeper integration than others.
But leaders had little choice but to act. The national debts of euro members, including Ireland and Greece, have pushed the common currency to the brink of collapse, forcing international lenders to swoop in with bailouts.
The budget cuts they have demanded have led to mass protests that brought down governments in both countries -- and they are not the only ones with worrying levels of debt. Larger economies like Spain and Italy have both come under pressure in financial markets recently, with their borrowing costs spiking to painfully high levels.
The French minister for European affairs, Jean Leonetti, had warned Thursday ahead of the summit meeting that the euro could "explode" and Europe could "unravel."
That would be a "disaster not only for Europe but for the whole world," Leonetti told the French TV station Canal+.
The new measures announced Friday by EU leaders to try to win back the confidence of panicky financial markets included handing over the running of the union's bailout funds to the European Central Bank and its new president, Mario Draghi. The central bank announced measures Thursday to try to revive the ailing European economy and ease credit conditions for troubled eurozone banks.
EU leaders have also decided to add 200 billion euros to the resources of the International Monetary Fund, said Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF. The fund has assisted in the bailout of struggling European economies, like Greece and Portugal.
The new intergovernmental treaty that European leaders are putting together will be easier to ratify than a change to existing treaties, said Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.
Awareness of the urgency of taming Europe's debt woes extends beyond the continent's borders.
The U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, had been touring Europe ahead of the summit to underline the importance of the EU's bringing the crisis under control.
"I want to emphasize again how important it is to the United States and to countries around the world that Europe succeeds in this effort to build a stronger Europe, and I'm confident they will succeed," Geithner said in France on Wednesday.
On Thursday he met Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy, who came to power when his country's government collapsed over its worsening debt crisis.
Geithner assured Monti that Washington supported his efforts to balance his country's budget.
Monti said he would meet President Barack Obama in Washington next month.

CNN's Jethro Mullen and Pierre Meilhan contributed to this report.
Source :http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/09/business/europe-debt-summit/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

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Posted in: European,Politics,Society

Pope on preparing for Christmas: ''We must let ourselves be illumined by the ray of Light that comes from Bethlehem''

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 5, 2011 - Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave Sunday before and after praying the midday Angelus.

Dear brothers and sisters!

This Sunday marks the second stage of Advent. This period of the liturgical year highlights two figures who had a pre-eminent role in the preparation of Jesus Christ’s entering into history: the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist. Today’s text from the Gospel of Mark focuses precisely on the latter. In fact it describes the personality and mission of the Precursor of Christ (cf. Mark 1:2-8). Beginning with externals, John is presented as a very ascetic figure: he is clothed in camel skins, he eats locusts and wild honey and he lives in the wilderness of Judea (cf. Mark 1:6). Jesus himself, once contrasted him with those “who live in the palaces of kings” and “wear soft garments” (Matthew 11:8). John the Baptist’s style should recall all Christians to choose a sober lifestyle, especially in preparation for the feast of Christmas in which the Lord -- as St. Paul says -- “although he was rich, became poor for your sake, that you might become rich through his poverty” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

In regard to John’s mission, it was an extraordinary call to conversion: his baptism “is connected to an ardent call to a new way of thinking and acting, but above all with the proclamation of God’s judgment” (“Jesus of Nazareth,” Ignatius Press, 2008, p. 14) and of the imminent appearance of the Messiah, defined as “he who is greater than me” and who “will baptize in the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7, 8). John’s message thus goes further and deeper than a sober way of life: it calls us to interior change, beginning with the acknowledgement and confession of our sin. As we prepare ourselves for Christmas, it is important that we look within ourselves and we sincerely reflect on our life. We must let ourselves be illumined by the ray of light that comes from Bethlehem, the light of him who is “the greater one” and made himself small, the “strongest one” and made himself weak.

All four of the evangelists describe the preaching of John the Baptist making reference to a passage of the prophet Isaiah: “A voice cries out: in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). Mark also inserts a citation from another prophet, Malachi, which says: “Behold, I send my messenger before you: he will prepare your way” (Mark 1:2; cf. Malachi 3:1). These references to the scriptures of the Old Testament “speak of a saving intervention of God, who emerges from his hiddenness to judge and save; it is for this God that the door is to be opened and the way made ready” (“Jesus of Nazareth,” p. 15).

To the maternal intercession of Mary, the Virgin of expectation, let us entrust our path toward the Lord, while we continue our Advent itinerary of making our heart and our life ready for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us.

[Following the recitation of the Angelus the Holy Father addressed the faithful in various languages. In Italian he said:]

Dear brothers and sisters!

In the upcoming days in Geneva and in other cities the 50th anniversary of the institution of the International Organization for Migration, the 60th anniversary of the convention on the status of refugees and the 50th anniversary of the convention on the reduction of cases of statelessness will be marked. I entrust to the Lord those who must -- and often are forced -- to leave their own country or are deprived of citizenship. While I encourage solidarity with them, I pray for all those who expend themselves to protect and assist these brothers in these emergency situations, even exposing themselves to great toil and danger.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
Source: Vietcatholic.net

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Posted in: Religion,Vatican

Virginia Tech: Ross Truett Ashley named as gunman

Police were unable to say what Ashley's motive was for killing the officer

The gunman who shot a Virginia Tech police officer and then turned the gun on himself was a 22-year-old from a nearby university, police say.

Police and Virginia Tech named Deriek Crouse's killer as Ross Truett Ashley, a Radford University student.
Officials said Ashley had stolen a car on Wednesday from a real estate office in Radford, which was later found on the Virginia Tech campus.
The shooting triggered a campus lockdown.
Ashley, who was enrolled part-time at Radford, reportedly entered a real estate office with a handgun and demanded the keys to an employees' vehicle, police said.
The vehicle, a white Mercedes SUV, was found the next day on Virginia Tech's campus, but police did not specify at what time.
At around 12:15 EST (17:15 GMT) on Thursday, police say Ashley shot Crouse while the officer was sitting in his car, and fled on foot.
He changed clothes at a greenhouse on campus and left a jumper and woollen cap in a backpack behind.
Shortly after seeing a man walking through a nearby car park, an officer found Ashley dead at the park.
He had suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
There was no information about how or why Ashley chose to stop running and turn the gun on himself.
Virginia Tech was the site of the worst US school shooting, in 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.
Missing links Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller says they are still trying to determine why officer Deriek Crouse was attacked.
Investigators have found no link between the gunman and Crouse, a married father of five and 39-year-old army veteran.

The university issued four separate alerts and kept students on campus in lockdown

  

Earlier on Friday, Ms Geller said a video camera inside the officer's vehicle captured footage of the suspect, and Virginia State Police confirmed that ballistics testing linked the officer's death and the suicide.
About 150 students gathered in a candlelight vigil on Thursday evening at the campus memorial for the shootings of four years ago.
An official vigil is planned on Friday night.
"Our hearts are broken again," university President Charles W Steger said on Thursday.
Deriek Crouse received an award in 2008 for his commitment to the department's efforts to deter drink-driving. He was trained as a crisis intervention officer and a defensive tactics instructor.
He was one of about 50 officers on the campus force and had served there for four years, joining about six months after the 2007 massacre.
Thirty-two people died in April that year when a 23-year-old South Korean, Seung-Hui Cho, went on a gun rampage before turning the weapon on himself.
His death came on the same day Virginia Tech appealed against a $55,000 (£35,200) fine imposed by the government for not reacting quickly enough to the 2007 massacre.
Source BBC

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Posted in: Society,USA,violence

Religious freedom for China's future

By Bernardo Cervellera - Asianews
The arrest, kidnapping and self-immolation of Tibetan monks are only one of the many faces with which China reasserts its power over religion. Even Catholic priests suffer arrests, control, the disappearances of bishops, disdain for the Pope and the Holy See. Religious awareness is growing in Chinese society, but Beijing is trying to wipe it out. Yet, only religion can save China from implosion.
Rome (AsiaNews) – Once again news of more arrests of Tibetan monks has reached us, after the terrible images of young monks and nuns who set themselves on fire for freedom. The violence against the Tibetan communities is only one aspect of the machine that dominates religions in China and tries to destroy them. The arrests of Tibetan monks and nuns is coupled with the arrest of underground Church priests (at least ten according to AsiaNews sources), sentenced to the Laogai, forced labor or "reform through labor", for simply having held a spiritual retreat for university students, or having given last rites to an old woman in hospital.

Along with the seizure of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, 21, the Panchen Lama chosen by the Dalai Lama - the youngest prisoner of conscience in the world – in the 90’s, there was also the detention of two Catholic bishops, Msgr. James Su Zhimin of Baoding, 80, and Msgr. Cosmas Shi Enxiang of Yixian, 88 years old, maybe the oldest prisoners of conscience, isolated in an unfamiliar place for refusing to renege on their bonds with the Pope.

The same can be said of the controls of Tibetan monasteries and faithful, in parallel with the control of the masses and gatherings of Catholics; the ban on all religious publications, the free diffusion of beliefs, on meetings between local and foreign faithful, on invitations to professors and teachers from abroad: all subject to the control of the Patriotic Association and the suspicion that any religious gathering is in itself a conspiracy against the nation: the Pope and the Dalai Lama are both seen as two foreign powers that want to undermine national unity.

In essence, there is one big difference between Catholics and Tibetans: Tibetan irredentism also has a territorial claim, independence or autonomy. Catholics do not have any territorial claims and live throughout China, choosing it as their home. Another difference is that Catholics have never been guilty of acts of violence against the Beijing government, while in these decades of Tibetan occupation, there have been attacks, riots, deaths, often caused by the Chinese police or army .

Despite these differences - indeed, precisely because of these differences – Beijing’s stronghold on religious freedom is even more incomprehensible, its controls and its contempt towards the pope and the Catholic faith. Only a few months ago - in June and July - there were two Episcopal ordinations in Leshan (Sichuan) and Shantou (Guangdong), carried out against the will of the Holy See, with bishops deliberately seized to force them to participate in an act contrary to their faith and bond of communion with the pope.

The point is that a dictatorship can not permit the luxury of allowing even the minimum amount of space slip beyond its control. For this reason, one’s relationship with God, with the pope, prayers to the Dalai Lama, the exhibition of his photos are considered subversive elements. China knows that religious freedom is a small path from which respect for the person and all human rights flows. Therefore, the liberalization of religion signifies undertaking political reforms inside and outside the party, which has promised more reforms, but has never kept those promises, preferring instead to support a rule of law of corruption, anarchy and tyranny.

For quite some time now China has been teetering on this very precipice – to reform or not – pulling back from the drop to dust off Maoist chants and Cultural Revolution-style repression. But it must act quickly: hundreds of millions of people in China, disappointed by the party injustices and suffocating materialism, are turning to religion. And many dissidents have discovered that the Christian faith - the God who loves man - is the secure foundation of human rights. If the leadership does not decide to make that jump soon, it will be forced to do so by the implosion towards which society is hurtling. Then, only religions, with their power of reconciliation, will be able to stop the destruction and violence.

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Posted in: China,Politics,Religion,Society

Vietnamese blogger arrested, family demands to know where he is and how he is

 Police raid home of writer Huynh Ngoc Tuan, who spent 10 years in prison. His nephew arrested, fines against him and his two children announced. In November they were charged with "propaganda against the Party and State."
Hanoi (AsiaNews) - The Vietnamese police have targeted an entire family of bloggers,  arresting Huynh Ngoc Le,  nephew of the writer Huynh Ngoc Tuan, 48 (pictured), who has spent 10 years in prison, up to 2002 , who has been fined. Economic sanctions also against his two children.

According to Radio Free Asia, the episode took place last Friday at Tam Ky, in central Vietnam. Huynh Thuc Vy, Huynh Ngoc Tuan's daughter, a hundred officers arrived at 15, blocked the road and began a search of their home. "When I tried to record the scene, two women police officers twisted my arms behind me and two men took the camera. They hit me in the arms and legs. "

The officers arrested Huynh Ngoc Le, who has tried to defend his cousin, and announced fines of 100 million dong (about 3,500 euros) against the head of the family and 85 million (about 3 thousand euros) against his two children. The girl says she does not know the reason the fines, but remembers that in the previous police raid in November, they were charged with "propaganda against the Party and State."

What concerns them most, however, is primarily the fact that "we do not know how he is, or where my cousin is. My family is really worried. "

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Posted in: Asia,Society,Vietnam

TOEIC IDOM: UNIT 4 - SALES AND MARKETING

Person A: Did you attend Sally’s presentation? 

Person B: No, I missed it, but I read her e-mail, 

Person A: It was great. No one expected her to be so plugged in to the customers’ needs. She really blew them away. I think the new product released will jumpstart our sales this quarter. It’s a long short, but I think we may reach the 5 million dollar mark. 

Person B: The new program is very user-friendly, which should increase sales. 

Person A: I agree. I think that the new management has a good game plan. First of  all, they have an excellent team. The new vice president has hired really good salespeople who interface well with the customers. She knows that good customer relationships are critical to our success. She’s also spending a lot on this new marketing campaign. She wants to go for broke.

Person B: She certainly works hard. She put in about 90 hours last week. Even if she does strike out and the campaign fails, I think she’ll go down swinging. I love her positive attitude. I hope she hits a home run. If she does, we’ll all benefit when the stock goes up. 

Person A: It’s possible. I think she is really dialed in to the customers. She seems to be able to anticipate the market, which helps her to stay ahead of the game. 

Person B: I agree. This could add up to a win-win situation for all of us.

1. Be plugged in/be dialed in: be connected or be knowledgeable about in a situation.

 If you want to know what’s really going on, ask Jim. He is really plugged in.

 If you want to be dialed in, you have to communicate with lots of people.

2. Blow someone away: greatly impress someone; exceed expectations.

 He set impossible goals, and then he achieved them. It blew his boss away.

 She blew them away when she made her presentation. They had no idea she would be so effective.

3. Jumpstart: so something to get an activity or institution working better or faster.

 Let’s jumpstart this project. It is our first priority.

 The economy was lagging, so the government tried to jumpstart it by lowering the interest rates.

4. A long shot: a very difficult goal or a goal that one does not expect to achieve

 Getting into that university is a long shot for him because he doesn’t have great grades.

 Reaching our sales goals in this quarter is a long shot because of the economy.

5. Be user-friendly: be easy to use

 This program is very user-friendly. It seems very logical.

 When a program is user-friendly, I don’t need to read the manual.

6. A game plan: a strategy or an organized approach to achieve a goal

 To get this done, we’ll need a really good game plan.

 We need to come up with a game plan to meet our goals.

7. Interface with someone/something: communicate or interact with someone or something.

 Her new job requires her to interface with the customers every day.

 The network here no longer interfaces well with the one overseas.

8. Go for broke: attempt to reach a very high goal; gamble everything

 He risked everything on the new venture. He went for broke.

 If we go for broke on this one, and it doesn’t work, we’ll be back to square one.

9. Strike out: fail or make a big mistake

 He struck out with the big account. They decided not to purchase the product.

 I don’t want to strike out on this project. I want it to be a success.

10. Go down swinging: keep trying until the end; never give it up

 He didn’t win the account, but he went down swinging. I like that guy.

 I’d rather go down swinging than not try at all.

11. Hit a home run: to be very successful

 That company really hit a home run with their new technology. Everyone is using it now.

 She has started three companies, and they’ve all been very successful. She always hits home run.

12. Ahead of the game: prepared for what’s coming; ahead of schedule

 Next month is the end of the quarter. I have to get my work finished early so I can get ahead of the game.

 Our new product should help our company get ahead of the game.

13. Add up: make sense; result in something

 It doesn’t add up. He’s losing money, but he’s still hiring new people.

 It all adds up to trouble. Changing the design and rushing the products to market  will create more problems.

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