There have been a wide range of comments in various media making comparisons between Tiananmen in 1989 and Teheran today, including one of our own posts, which wondered about the authorities reactions in China. Over at the China Media Project, David Bandurski highlighted a Guangming Daily article which blamed western media forces for stirring up trouble in Iran. Interestingly, as well as the usual suspects like CNN and the BBC, the article cited Twitter and noted that a U.S. State Department official had specifically called Twitter executives to ask them to delay scheduled maintenance that would hve interrupted service in Iran. A couple of days later, an article (here in Chinese; thanks as ever to the indefatigable Russ Moses for pointing it out) in the People’s Daily took up the Twitter point and argued that there was an unspoken collusion between new media and the U.S. government that constituted a new “e-diplomacy” by which Washington was pursuing it’s nefarious ends (in this case spreading its “value system,” a not very subtle code word for you-know-what). More so than the Guangming daily article, this piece dwells on the role of Twitter in Iran and its apparent cooperation with the U.S. State Department. Without reading too much into these two articles, it seems clear that along with worries about color revolutions, the authorities long have been perfectly aware of the dangers posed by mobile phones and text messaging but may just be beginning to realize that social networking tools like Twitter could pose a problem in difficult situations too. Coming in the wake of the sudden hysteria over Green Dam (see posts passim) and then the thwacking of Google (ditto), it does make one wonder whether Twitter’s China people are feeling a little nervous right now…..
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Jerusalem Day in the Old City: The Conflict Marches On
Sunday was Jerusalem Day in Israel, a holiday once again observed by thousands of young Jews who chanted as they marched through Arab neighborhoods conquered in the 1967 Six Day War. The tension is always highest in the narrow passages of the largely Palestinian Old City. So much so that the city’s police this year tried to route the column of youths — most singing patriotic and religious songs, a few chanting “Death to the Arabs” — away from the Arab Quarter. But in the end, the police proved powerless against tradition, and the original route was restored. On Jerusalem Day, marching through the Arab Quarter is the whole point.
Obama’s Afghanistan Problem: Neither Karzai Nor the Taliban Like the ‘Reconciliation’ Script
President Barack Obama huddled with President Hamid Karzai in Chicago on Sunday, urging Afghanistan’s leader to accelerate negotiations with the Taliban over a political solution to the longest war in America’s history. But the prospect for Karzai negotiating successfully with the insurgents is clouded by a question raised by Josef Stalin, on the eve of World War II, in response to the suggestion that he offer concessions to the Pope: “How many divisions does he have?” The Taliban now ask the same question about Karzai. And should the Afghan leader also ask himself the question, he might reach a similarly dispiriting conclusion. Karzai’s independent power base is minimal, as is his ability to influence the outcome of his country’s civil war absent direct U.S. involvement. And that gives neither Karzai nor the Taliban much incentive to cut a deal with the other.
Must-Reads from Around the World, May 21, 2012
Spillover - Lebanon’s Daily Star reports on escalating violence inside the country after soldiers shot dead a prominent anti-Bashar al-Assad Muslim preacher Sunday. “The gravity of the incident… prompted leaders on both sides of the political divide to call for calm and restraint to prevent the country from sliding into sectarian strife as a result of a spillover of the 15-month-old uprising in neighboring Syria,” it says.
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http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com C.A. Yeung
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johnsmith9876
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http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com C.A. Yeung
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johnsmith9876
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http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com C.A. Yeung
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chinabriefing
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2morrow2
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chinabriefing
