Social Media Training

30 Oct 2010 - Beijing city officials are being trained to use the mainland's fast-growing social media in the latest government move to guide and monitor public opinion, state media said. The City's Communist party school is offering a training to "bureau-level leading cadres" to help "leaders catch up with internet currents", the Legal Evening news reported. The training will "raise cadres' understanding of information dissemination, and social and public sentiment in order to better respond to sudden crisis", it said. Mainland blogs, chat rooms and other sites have become lively outlets for expression given traditional media are tightly controlled and freedom of speech is curtailed. In particualr, Twitter-like microblogging sites have grown fast, with tens of  millions of people believed to have opened accounts in the past year alone. The propaganda machine has reached the 21st century.

No MIni-Skirts

29 Oct - The mayor of the southern Italian seaside town of Castellammare di Stabia got his way on Monday, when the city council approved a ban on football games in public parks and squares, blasphemy out loud and "very skimpy clothes". Conservative Mayor Luigi Bobbio said that miniskirts and other provocative outfits would still be allowed as long as they were not too revealing. "its a matter of commonsense, of common decency,: he says. A handful of local female politicians protested in front of the town's city hall during Monday's vote, if any, wore miniskirts. The measures also included a ban on men going around shirtless. Violations will be punished with a fine of up to EUR 500. The measures went into force immediately, Bobbio said.

Superbug

29 Oct 2010 - More than 7 years ago I arrived in Hong Kong in the middle of the SARS outbreak. I clearly remember the scary world of empty streets and masked faces. SARS killed almost 300 people in Hong Kong and many more worldwide. Luckily, it never came back. It seems somewhat ironic that I picked up that the first case of the antibiotic-resistant superbug infection was detected in Malaysia. The female patient has made a full recovery and - according to the Ministry of Health spokesperson - poses no threat to the public, the Ministry continues to take precautionary measures to ensure that the bacteria does not spread.

Dead Celebrity

28 Oct 2010 - Michael Jackson's sudden death sparked an outpouring of grief around the world, but fans also opened their wallets to make him this year's top-earning dead celebrity with USD 275 million, Forbes Magazine mentioned. Jackson brought in more than the combined total of the other 12 celebrities on the list, and he was ranked third on last years' over all list. Elvis Presley came in second and The Lord of the Rings author Tolkien came third, just before Charles Schultz, the creator of Charlie Brown. John Lennon ranked number five. "Jackson's top spot should come as no surprise given the renewed interest in his music, videos and all other things related to Michael Jackson," Forbes writer Lacey Rose said.

Mister Donut

28 Oct 2010 - A Mister Donut store in Taiwan has been fined thousands of dollars for "smell pollution" after neighbors complained that the aroma of the sweet, fried pastries was overpowering, an official said. The shop operated by food giant President Chain Store must pay TWD 100,000 (HKD 25,300) after inspectors checked out the complaints, showing it is not only bad smells which fall foul of environmental regulations, The Taipei city official said. "Our team of odour inspectors ruled that the smell from the store was above regulated level after receiving complaints from nearby residents that it was too much for them," she said. inever there was job like "odour inspector" - maybe it is something to be introduced for Hong Kong. The Hong Kong residents fighting extension of a garbage dump would have somebody to turn to?

Whale World Record

28 Oct 2010 - We have the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the Asia Games, the East Asia Games et cetera; people aim for the highest possible and break new records all the times. The number one spot will bring fame and glory, but little attention goes to animals who set amazing records. A female humpback whale swam 9,650 km from Brazil to Madagascar, a journey that set a world record for a migrating mammal. The findings help researchers understand the behavior of the whales, Peter  Stevick of the College of the Atlantic in Maine wrote in the Biology Letters. The whale, identified by her natural marking and DNA, was first seen off in Brazil in August 1999. She will not even be mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records.

Great Picture (23)

26 Oct 2010 - Some pictures show misery, disaster and accidents. This accident happened yesterday in Hong Kong when a bus plunged off an overpass, but miraculously the taxi drivers were not seriously hurt - possibly because they were fast asleep in their cars and had a guardian angel watching over them? The bus had no passengers on board but the busdriver was critically wounded. The picture was published in the SCMP, and made by Felix Wong.

No Kissing

26 Oct 2010 - Amourous couples at theMandarin Gallery on Orchard Road in Singapore have to find a new make-out spot after the mall put up no-kissing signs in its plush rest areas. The kissing crackdown, together with bans on sleeping and eating, started in July. Three individual signs, framed as one, show a fork and spoon, a cartoon man lying down snoozing and a kissing cartoon couple holding hands, with a heart between them - all with a bold red line drawn through. It was put up after a handful of complaints to the mall management about bad behaviour by inconsiderate shoppers ranging from people hogging couches to young canoodlers. Tenants whose shopfronts face the lounge areas say the signs - especially the kissing one - are much needed, even if they may raise a fewe eyebrows. I guess that point the Mandarin  Gallery tries to make is that one is welcome for shopping only.

Raising Orchard Road

24 Oct 2010 - I am still in Singapore and I read in the Strait Times newspaper that the Singapore Government plans to raise Orchard Road to a new level, literally, under a SGD 26 million project to stave off future floods. A low lying stretch of the shopping belt, from Orchard Parade Hotel to Cairnhill, will be raised by an average of 30 cm to prevent rainwater from overflowing onto the roads. Work will begin in November and is expected to be finished by the middle of 2011. It sounds like a major exercise, but raising the road appears a "tried and proven" method that can help prevent a recurrence of the flash floods that deluged parts of Orchard Road in June and |July this year. Maybe the Singapore Government can consult the Maldives before the islands sinks into the sea because of global warming. And maybe this is also something for the motherland?

Quote of the Day (23)

24 Oct 2010 - Some people tend to joke that Singapore is boring, but I disagree. The place has changed a lot over the last years and has now a rather groovy soul. But Singapore still suffers from the stigma of being a place where chewing gum is banned, and vandalizers are caned. What do Singaporeans think of the stigma themselves? Alfian Sa'at says: "I think it's been one big tedious and frustrating striptease when it comes to liberalization policies in Singapore. They'll flash a bit of thigh, but then cover up some other spot. So you are hopeful and tantalized for a moment - yay, there's a multi-tier film rating system - and then it stops short of expactations. Ditto with coming up with Speakers' corner and than telling you that a "cause-related gathering" of ONE person outside its parameters can result in a police officer telling yo to move on". Arrrr, maybe Singapore has still some way to go?