La danza prescinde de la música en el mundo del silencio en que viven millones de sordomudos.
Esta mañana me ha llegado un correo electrónico con este magnífico vídeo titulado “La danza de las mil manos”, que está dando la vuelta a la red. Ejecuta esta sincronizada y plástica danza 21 bailarinas sordas que forman parte de la Chinese Disabled People’s Performing Art, guiadas por las señales de cuatro formadores colocados en las esquinas del escenario, en forma de loto, donde las bailarinas representan la deidad budista que personifica la compasión y la misericordia. Cada posición de las manos o “mudra” tiene un significado.
El nombre de la danza es Thousand-Hand Guan Yin. Guan Yin es la bodhisattva de la compasión y significa “la que oye el llanto del mundo”. Su primer gran debut internacional fue en Atenas en la ceremonia de clausura de los Juegos Paralímpicos 2004, y ya han viajado a más de 60 países. El autor de la danza y el principal coreógrafo de la compañía es el teniente general Zhang Jigang, que se dio a conocer como coreógrafo en la década de los 80, cosechando sus primeros grandes éxitos a partir de los 90.
Esta danza está dentro del espectáculo “Mi sueño“. ¡No podrían haber elegido un título mejor!
Somewhere Daniel Bell is celebrating. The enactment of global climate change legislation, to be disccused in Copenhagen later this year, is tantamout to economic strangulation. For the industrialized world, specifically the U.S and Western Europe, the strangulation is directed at stemming the growth of developing and third-world nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the continued ascendance of Russia and China as economic powerhouses. Not only do carbon emission limits negatively effect all countires that use carbon-intensive practices, but also acts as harbinger of a domestic anti-productionist sentiment, fortifying the post-industrial wasteland we find ourselves living in. Carbon emission limits also lead to the collection of an additional tax (or taxes) to be levied on middle and lower class Americans who will be forced to expend the minimal amount of carbon in order to survive, but still avoid fines.
At least Lord Stern recognizes, like the majority of the Third World, that carbon emission limits and economic growth are completely incompatable–the problem is: he thinks China, Brazil, India and the African Nations will sign on for the Copenhagen Plan, when they have publically said that they will not. Stern writes, “this is never going to work unless developing countries are involved.” So I guess, minus the participation of the developing world, sacrificing the economic wellbeing and growth of the industrialized nations in the service of an unattainable goal is a completely appropriate method of action.
Junk science for a socio-economic transformation. Don’t you love the commoditization of your life? Don’t forget your carbon credits!
Stern: Rich nations will have to forget about growth to stop climate change The Guardian
I have just been on the phone with one of the most amazing women on the planet. Xinran, author of several books including The Good Women of China – which truly changed my life – and China Witness, has agreed to meet me (not for the first time) to talk about the book I’m in the process of editing based equally between London and Beijing. It needs to be ‘Chinese’ enough and not obviously written by someone who’s not Chinese. I’m not, of course, and Xinran is, which was why I contacted her in the first place. She was the one person I knew of who could help me with the Chinese perspective and who could speak with a great deal of authority and I’m aware of how privileged I am that she agreed to lend me a hand.
Xinran was a respected journalist in China, something of a celebrity, and I feel honoured and humbled that she is giving up some of her precious time (I swear she’s the busiest lady I’ve ever met, equal only to one other) for little me. I’m not a respected journalist, nowhere near celebrity-like and am, in comparison, just getting started. But here was I, talking to her on the phone like an old friend.
I respect this lady more than I can ever describe. She has worked, and continues to work, tirelessly for the cause of women, Chinese adoptees (via her charity Mothers’ Bridge of Love) and for a greater understanding between China and the West.
I only hope the finished product – my book – will do her justice.
Negociar diretamente com o Irã corresponde a colocar um alto representante do governo americano na mesma mesa com correspondente representante do Irã, pela primeira vez desde 1979, ano da Revolução Iraniana, segundo o New York Times.
Os conservadores certamente reclamarão que é ingênuo negociar com o Irã incondicionalmente, enquanto os defensores dos direitos humanos dirão que será a legitimização de um governo que manipulou as eleições presidenciais e esmagou os protestos.
“Havendo conversações, traremos à baila a questão nuclear”, disse o porta-voz do Departamento de Estados, Philip J. Crowley.
Participarão também das conversações a Inglaterra, a França, a Rússia, a China e a Alemanha.
Crowley disse ainda que os Estados Unidos também querem negociar diretamente com a Coréia do Norte sobre o seu programa nuclear.
The delegation was made up of representatives from various government agencies: military, police, border security, crossborder trade and agriculture, among others. Identities of participants were not disclosed, apart from saying that most of the top Wa leaders are now in Hsaopha to attend the funeral of the Wa State founder Chao Ngi-lai, who died on 8 September.
Yesterday’s meeting where host officials were being questioned about the current stormy relations with Naypyitaw lasted 09:00-11:00. “It ended with a closing speech by a visiting official that China would be happy to see Burma resolve its problems in a peaceful manner,” said a source.
The speech echoed what Jiang Yu, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman said yesterday, according to Xinhua, in response to a question whether or not China had provided information that had led to the Burma Army’s recent crackdown on the Wa’s northern ally Kokang: “China never interferes in Myanmar’s internal affairs and would like to see Myanmar resolve its issues though peaceful consultations.”
The Wa territory on the Sino-Burma is now besieged by the Burma Army in the north and southwest. The Salween forms a natural barrier in the west and China a political barrier in the east. Only a small corridor exists between it and its southeastern ally, Mongla-based National Democracy Alliance Army (NDAA).
Shanland org
So says New York Time useful idiot and column filler Thomas Friedman. I am a day late reporting on this, and the sheer lunacy of his column has been subsumed under the background noise surrounding Obama’s address to Congress. Nevertheless, his idiocy is far too stunning to bypass.
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.
And just what might those drawbacks be? Perhaps a horrific record of human rights abuses, forced abortions that have entirely distorted the balance of men and women in the population, constant violations of religious liberty, draconian
Brutal Chinese dictatorship is really good at making trains run on time
censorship laws, horrendous pollution, and organ harvesting for a start. But hey they have nice new shiny trains!!
Jonah Goldberg comments: I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it’s the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn’t picky in this regard). This is the argument for an “economic dictatorship” pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It’s the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.
How true Jonah how true. And indeed it should be shocking, but it no longer is. Whatever admiration I had for Friedman has gone up in smoke along with his credibility.
The phrase “useful idiot” has been attributed to Lenin and supposedly references Western Communist sympathizers. Friedman certainly fits that category. Why should a columnist who enjoys tremendous wealth, prestige and freedom seek to praise a system as horrid as that of Communist China? It seems amazingly crazy, but in fact for the leftist, China is doing the right thing. They don’t mind restrictions on religion or abortion or organ harvesting. In fact they prefer it, as they always have, because it is always in service to some greater good to which freedom and liberty are but obstacles.
Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air:
putting aside Friedman’s longing for fascism (as long as it supports his policies), Friedman’s entire premise is suspect. We haven’t enacted government-run health care precisely because we’re not a “one-party democracy.” Constituents have made their opposition plain to it across the nation, and Democrats understand that Republicans will replace many of their colleagues if they support ObamaCare. Obama’s approval numbers have dropped precipitously as well, because people dissent from the orthodoxy of the Democratic elites. That’s what has Friedman pining for Beijing.
Indeed. I have fallen asleep and awaken in a strange strange world. But I don’t want to live in Friedman’s world of one party autocracy. That’s what America has always stood against. Liberty is more important than universal health care coverage, more important than carbon regulation, and much more important that stroking Obama’s ego. Liberty and freedom are more important than shiny trains, even ones that go real fast.
BEIJING, Sep 9 (IPS) – Despite fresh international criticism of Beijing’s backing for an unpopular regime as the Burmese junta, China sees its alliance with the country’s military as a matter of simple economic expediency and is determined to forge ahead with controversial joint dual oil and gas pipelines that will ensure greater energy security for its robust economy.
This month sees the first digs on the mammoth infrastructure project that will connect China’s southwestern province of Yunnan with Burma’s western coast.
The proposed gas pipeline will transfer gas from the offshore Shwe gas fields in Arakan state all the way to the capital Kunming of Yunnan province and possibly further inland in China. The twin oil pipeline will be used to transfer oil shipped from the Middle East and Africa bypassing the strategically vulnerable Malacca Strait shipping route.
After Burmese activists released a detailed report Monday on the project forecasting it will trigger social unrest and create a public relations fiasco for the Chinese company involved, a state-run newspaper in Beijing rejected the allegations, saying the project was unlikely to be stopped.
The Shwe Gas Movement, a group of Burmese exiles in Bangladesh, India and Thailand, also said the junta’s recent offensive against ethnic rebels near the pipeline route showed that the regime had no concerns about providing stability for investors, which could translate into great security risks for the project undertakers.
“China is not afraid of the threat and criticism,” the ‘Global Times’ – a paper published by the state news agency – quoted an anonymous Chinese official familiar with the issue. “When Myanmar (Burma’s official name) was constructing a pipeline to Thailand in the 1990s, Myanmar activists also criticised the government, but the voice is barely heard now.”
Outside observers though believe the new pipeline project carries greater potential risks than the pipeline conveying gas to Thailand, which they described as a “vehicle for a proliferation of human rights abuses” during its construction and after – such as the widespread use of forced labour and forced evictions.
“Such practices, in the likelihood they would re-occur with respect to this latest pipeline, could very well be the spark to set off a broader conflict,” said Sean Turnell, a Burma expert at Macquarie University in Australia. “Of course, exacerbating matters is the fact that Chinese energy firms have a less than stellar record themselves when it comes to the ruthlessness with which they pursue energy deals.” China’s largest oil and gas producer, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is due to start the construction of the dual pipelines at a total length of nearly 4,000 kilometres in September. The deal is expected to provide the Burmese military, which has ruled the country with an iron grip since a 1962 coup, with at least 29 billion U.S. dollars over 30 years.
Although Burma ranks 10th in the world in terms of natural gas reserves, its per capita electricity consumption is less than 5 percent of neighbouring Thailand and China, as its government exports most of the country’s energy resources.
The Shwe Gas Movement report, titled ‘Corridor of Power’, charges that gas revenues in the past have been lavishly spent by the junta on building a new capital and satisfying the extravagant wishes of its ruling generals.
“People across Burma are facing severe energy shortages, and this massive energy export will only fuel social unrest,” said Wong Aung, spokesperson of the Shwe Gas Movement. “These resources belong to our people and should be used for the energy needs of our country.”
China – the exclusive buyer of Burma’s Shwe offshore gas reserves — sees the pipelines as one of the pieces in a greater energy domino played by Beijing to secure its energy supplies.
Burma’s pipelines constitute part of CNPC’s four-fold strategy to avoid China’s dependence on imported oil shipped by sea. Since 2004 Beijing has negotiated the construction of overland pipelines in four different directions, connecting Chinese energy buyers with suppliers in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Burma.
“The greatest significance of Burma’s pipelines for China lies with the possibility for solving our reliance on the Malacca shipping route,” said Long Changwei, expert at China University of Petroleum. “Once it is built, the pipeline will be a reliable alternative for oil flowing in from the Middle East and Africa. Even if there is a crisis in the Malacca Straits, China’s exposure to it will be greatly minimized.”
In addition, the development of a deep sea port on Burma’s western coast will provide China with access to the Bay of Bengal — a strategic advantage in its attempts to expand its sphere of influence over the Indian Ocean.
Yet there are flip sides to this new energy corridor. The proposed pipelines run through the north-eastern Shan State, where as recently as late August, ceasefire ethnic minority armies fought against the regime. The clashes between the Burmese military and the Kokang rebels that sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing across the Chinese border have raised the possibility that there might be more social strife and armed conflicts if the pipelines project gets underway.
CNPC is going to have to be “very careful,” said Macquarie University’s Turnell. “What was once a simple deal to extract cheap gas for China could blow up into a diplomatic crisis should the pipeline aggravate the incipient conflict between ethnic groups long backed by China, and a regime in Burma that was long thought of as likewise a client of China.”
In a longer term, China’s willingness to help an unpopular regime stay in power could turn out to be short-sighted as it encourages latent anti- Chinese sentiment. Chinese communities that have worked very closely with military regimes in South-east Asia and become immensely rich in the process have been targeted before, as evidenced by violent anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia when the Suharto regime fell in 1998.
The Shwe Gas Movement report suggests that China would be in a better position to trade with Burma under a stable government. It also argues that the current military rulers’ political roadmap does not aim at bringing peace and political stability to the country.
