China's propaganda mandarins closed an outspoken supplement of a respected newspaper, as Web search leader Google announced restrictions on a new service for China to avoid confrontation with Beijing.
China's Communist Party publicity department ordered Freezing Point, the weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily, to stop publication, its founding editor Li Datong (
Li's blog has also been shut down after he publicized the decision to close the weekly, founded in 1995 with a circulation of 300,000.
He declined further comment.
The Communist Party has tightened its hold over the media, the Internet, non-governmental organizations, lawyers, academics and dissidents to prevent "color revolutions" along the lines of popular protests which toppled dictatorships in post-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine in recent years.
Prison sentence
China also sentenced a journalist to three years in prison on Tuesday for fabricating and spreading alarmist information about an outbreak of dengue fever in Fujian Province in 2004, defense lawyer Mo Shaoping (
Li Changqing (
China was the world's leading jailer of journalists last year for the seventh consecutive year with 32 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
A China Youth Daily editor who requested anonymity said the weekly supplement was shut for publishing an essay this month by Sun Yat-sen University history professor Yuan Weishi, which criticized Chinese high school textbooks for portraying the 1900 xenophobic Boxer Rebellion as a patriotic movement.
Do no evil?
Meanwhile, US Internet giant Google launched a new service in China yesterday after agreeing to censor Web sites and content banned by the nation's propaganda chiefs, the company said.
Lured by China's vast and growing online market, Google joined other Western Internet giants, including Microsoft and Yahoo, which have bowed to the government's strict policing of the Web.
"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy," the company said in a statement announcing its new Google.cn service.
"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information ... is more inconsistent with our mission," the statement said.
Google.cn will work within limits set by the Chinese government, with Google removing links to Web sites deemed unacceptable to the government, the company said.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
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