Blog 11

Yes I know Blog 10 and 11 are really close together.
I do need you to do both Blogs.

Watch part 1 and 2 of the video.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2008/04/18/wus.sinking.bka.cnn?iref=videosearch

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2008/04/18/wus.sinking.bkb.cnn?iref=videosearch

Blog 10

Hi Grade 8 students.

Watch the videos and read some articles and then write a response.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7397489.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7397011.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7396502.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7396407.stm

Blog 9

Hello
I am back.
A new blog. Fantastic.
Respond by April 18, 2008 if you want more than an F.

Should China host the Olympics? What do you think of this quote? "No human rights, no Olympics."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/08/us.olympic.torch/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Happy blogging.

Mr Mc

Blog 8

Watch this video carefully for culture, food, dress, religion: differences and similarities to our culture. Then leave your own comment.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2008/01/21/quest.xmas.spirit.dewali.bkb.cnn?iref=videosearch

Blog 7 Oil Spill

What can you do?

Look at the web link and lets see what ideas we can have. Perhaps you can find out more from Korean web sites or on the news.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/09/skorea.spill.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

Blog 6

Please check out this website article and post a comment.

http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2007/11/19/mount-paektu-pilgrimage-packages-for-2008/

Do remember I grade on three points.
1. Your response to the article. Make a connection. Make a comment.
2. Answer, Why did I select this answer?
3. Answer, Why is this relevant to our class?

Happy bloging.

Mr Mc

Blog 5

Have a look at he Web site and make a comment. I recommend you use the section called learn. Remember this could help you in the "War Lords of Japan."

http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/explore/regions/index.html

Blog 4 - at last a new blog

Bush medal for Dalai Lama alarms China
by Tim Reid in Washington http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2658653.ece

President Bush will this week become the first sitting US President to appear publicly with the Dalai Lama, a move that has alarmed China at a time of increased tensions between Tibetan monks and Beijing.
Mr Bush will also play host to Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader at the White House tomorrow before attending a ceremony on Wednesday where the Dalai Lama will be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the US Congress’s highest civilian honour.
In their two previous meetings, Mr Bush – like other presidents – met the Dalai Lama in private to avoid offending China, which accuses him of being a separatist intent on winning Tibetan independence from Beijing.
The Dalai Lama’s congressional award and US visit have been condemned by Beijing, which accused Congress of “interfering in China’s internal affairs”. Last month Beijing warned Germany that bilateral ties had been damaged after Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, met the Dalai Lama in Berlin. He also met John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, in June.

Mr Bush will make a short speech at the medal ceremony on Wednesday, an appearance that represents a delicate diplomatic balancing act for the President. He is keen to court China as an economic partner but has also made freedom and democracy a significant theme of his presidency.
Last month he warned Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, at the Apec meeting in Sydney that he planned to attend the ceremony, in an attempt to defuse Chinese anger. At the same meeting, Mr Bush also told Mr Hu that he would attend the Olympic Games in Beijing next year.
The White House has also played down the significance of Mr Bush’s attendance at the award ceremony, saying that he has appeared at every other Congressional Gold Medal event. In his brief speech, Mr Bush will praise the Dalai Lama as a “great spiritual leader”, but will also state that he is not seeking Tibetan independence.
Dana Perino, Mr Bush’s spokesman, said that Mr Bush understood “that the Chinese have concerns about this”. The Dalai Lama’s US visit comes amid growing tensions between Beijing and Tibetan monks after China introduced new laws on reincarnation, an important element of Buddhist faith. Beijing said last month that living Buddhas are no longer allowed to be reincarnated without permission from the atheist Communist Government.

Previous recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal include Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. Tony Blair was awarded it four years ago but never collected it because Downing Street believed the ceremony would have reinforced his politically damaging relationship with Mr Bush.
After the award, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, will make a speech on the West Lawn of Congress.
A unique decoration
— The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award in the US
— It was first given to George Washington, in 1776, and since then there have been about 300 awarded
— The presentation of each medal has to be approved by a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate
— Once the award is approved, the US Mint is commissioned to produce a unique design, based on the achievements of the individual
— Past medal designs have included a scene from the Snoopy cartoons for Charles Schultz, their creator, and a sprinter, for Jesse Owens, the four-time Olympic gold medallist

BLOG 3

Man dies after 3-day gaming binge

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday.
The 30-year-old man fainted at a cyber cafe in the city of Guangzhou Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.

Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said. The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.
The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing.
The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."
China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the U.S.. It is one of the world's biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of PCs in public Internet cafes.
Several cities have clinics to treat what psychiatrists have dubbed "Internet addiction" in users, many of them children and teenagers, who play online games or surf the Web for days at a time.

The article comes from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/17/internet.death.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

Wikipedia - you are warned

The following article is from the BBC and has been shortened for the purpose of less reading.

The complete article is on the link below. Wikipedia is not a good source to quote in any research you do because anyone can change the information any time. - Mr McAllister. Happy reading.

Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits' By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News
The tool detected changes to a page about Mahmoud AhmadinejadAn online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.
Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency's computers made edits to the page of Iran's president. The tool, developed by a US researcher, trawls a list of 34m edits and matches them to the net address of the editor. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopaedia that can be created and edited by anyone. Most of the edits detected by the scanner correct spelling mistakes or factual inaccuracies in profiles. However, others have been used to remove potentially damaging material or to deface sites. On the profile of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tool indicates that a worker on the CIA network reportedly added the exclamation "Wahhhhhh!" before a section on the leader's plans for his presidency. A warning on the profile of the anonymous editor reads: "You have recently vandalised a Wikipedia article, and you are now being asked to stop this type of behaviour." It is claimed the entry was changed by a CIA computer user

Other changes that have been made are more innocuous, and include tweaks to the profile of former CIA chief Porter Goss and celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey.

When asked whether it could confirm whether the changes had been made by a person using a CIA computer, an agency spokesperson responded: "I cannot confirm that the traffic you cite came from agency computers. "I'd like in any case to underscore a far larger and more significant point that no one should doubt or forget: The CIA has a vital mission in protecting the United States, and the focus of this agency is there, on that decisive work."

The site also indicates that a computer owned by the US Democratic Party was used to make changes to the site of right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The changes brand Mr Limbaugh as "idiotic," a "racist", and a "bigot". An entry about his audience now reads: "Most of them are legally retarded."

We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level Wikipedia spokesperson The IP address is registered in the name of the Democratic National Headquarters. A spokesperson for the Democratic Party said that the changes had not been made on its computers. Instead, they said that the "IP address is the same as the DCCC". The DCCC, or Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is the "official campaign arm of the Democrats" in the House of Representatives and shares a building with the party. "We don't condone these sorts of activities and we take every precaution to ensure that our network is used in a responsible manner," Doug Thornell of the DCCC told the BBC News website. Mr Thornell pointed out that the edit had been made "close to two years ago" and it was "impossible to know" who had done it.

Wikipedia already collects the IP address or username of editors Wikipedia Scanner also points the finger at commercial organisations that have modified entries about the pages. One in particular is Diebold, a company which supplies electronic voting machines in the US. In October 2005, a person using a Diebold computer removed paragraphs about Walden O'Dell, chief executive of the company, which revealed that he had been "a top fund-raiser" for George Bush. A month later, other paragraphs and links to stories about the alleged rigging of the 2000 election were also removed. The paragraphs and links have since been reinstated. Diebold officials have not responded to requests by the BBC for information about the changes.

The Wikipedia Scanner results are not the first time that people have been uncovered editing their own Wikipedia entries. Wikipedia Scanner may prevent an organisation or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to Wikipedia spokesperson Staff at the US Congress have also previously been exposed for editing and removing sensitive information about politicians. An inquiry was launched after staff for Democratic representative Marty Meehan admitted polishing his biography

The new tool was built by Virgil Griffith of the California Institute of Technology. It exploits the open nature of Wikipedia, which already collects the net address or username of editors and tracks all changes to a page. The information can be accessed in the "history" tab at the top of a Wikipedia page. By merging this information with a database of IP address owners, Wikipedia Scanner is able to put a name to the organisation and firms from which edits are made. The scanner cannot identify the individuals editing articles, admits Mr Griffith. "Technically, we don't know whether it came from an agent of that company, however, we do know that edit came from someone with access to their network," he wrote on the Wikipedia Scanner site. A spokesperson for Wikipedia said the tool helped prevent conflicts of interest. "We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level," they said. "Wikipedia Scanner may prevent an organisation or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to." BBC News website users contacted the corporation to point out that the tool also revealed that people inside the BBC had made edits to Wikipedia pages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6947532.stm

China declares 'war' on tainted products

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China has launched a four-month "war" on tainted food, drugs and exports, state media reported on Friday, as beleaguered officials embraced time-tested campaign tactics to clean up the country's battered image.


The campaign will focus on products that have dented consumers' confidence in the "Made in China" label.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi told officials the campaign, to run to the end of the year, would focus on problem products that have badly dented domestic and foreign consumers' confidence in the "Made in China" label.

"This is a special battle to protect the health and personal interests of the public and to protect the reputation of Chinese goods and the national image," Wu said, according to the government Web site.

The world's largest toymaker, Mattel, recalled more than 18 million Chinese-made toys in mid-August because of hazards from small magnets that can cause injury if swallowed, just two weeks after it recalled 1.5 million toys due to fears over lead paint.

Wal-Mart said it was asking suppliers to resubmit testing documentation for the toys it sells after Mattel's move.

Other Chinese export scares have hit toothpaste, animal-food ingredients, tires, eels and seafood, and deadly chemicals that found their way into cough medicine, killing dozens of patients in Panama.

Shaken by the product scares, China has fought back with new rules, factory shutdowns, constant news conferences and now an old-style campaign to shake up local officials often more focused on economic-growth targets.

Wu blamed lax inspection and enforcement and failure of officials in rival agencies to cooperate. She vowed to whip them into line with a list of eight tasks and 20 specific goals.

"Clearly, this is an autocratic, top-down approach using campaigning methods," said Mao Shoulong, an expert on public policy at the People's University of China.

"In China, this campaigning method still has a role to play in addressing relatively simple problems, because when grassroots officials see the premier or vice premier taking up an issue, focusing on it, they know they also have to sit up and pay attention."

Since 1949, the ruling Communist Party has often resorted to short-term storming campaigns to deal with enemies, pests and policy bottlenecks, though the frequency and intensity of these efforts have died down in past decades.

"The execution of Zheng Xiaoyu was also part of that campaigning approach to get officials' attention," said Mao, referring to the former head of the national food and drug safety watchdog, who was executed in July for taking bribes.

In the latest health scare the Shanghai Daily reported on Friday that city officials had seized more than a ton of kelp soaked in a toxic chemical to keep it looking fresh. They also found fake wine and vinegar.

Wu, the powerful trade-policy chief who was named head of a leading group on product safety, announced targets to clean up pig slaughtering, restaurants and canteens, pesticide use, food additives and the country's vital exports.

She defended the general quality of food exports but said there were also deep-seated problems.

"In some businesses the management level is low, production conditions are poor, quality levels and standards are low, and reliability is weak," she said

The following is from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/24/china.safety.reut/index.html
Use the link to find out more.