Today's Links: IOC stops worldwide torch relay, the difficulties of compiling Earthquake statistics, and efforts to curb hand-foot-mouth disease

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  • Common sense reigns as IOC ends worldwide torch relay [Yahoo! Sports] "The International Olympic Committee decided to end the globetrotting torch relay, discontinuing an event that began with the Athens Games in 2004 and was used again by the organizers of the Beijing Games this past August. For future games, the torch will only tour the country where the games are being hosted."
  • China News: Ai Weiwei: Q&A On Earthquake Toll Accounting Efforts [China Digital Times (CDT)] "Artist, activist, and blogger Ai Weiwei is leading an effort to publish the names of those who died in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake. The action has invited responses from around the globe — and questions from those most nearby, in China. Netizens asked Ai questions ranging from his thoughts on tofu dregs construction to his feelings regarding social responsibility. Ai has responded to dozens of questions found on the posts entitled “做客天涯 (一)” and “做客天涯 (二).” Below is a selection of five of these questions and responses. Translated by CDT." (Blocked in China)
  • Analysts dismiss 'cyber spy' claims [China Daily] "Top analysts yesterday refuted claims by researchers hired by the Dalai Lama that China runs a cyper spy network, branding them "exaggerated" and an attempt to paint the nation as a "threat". "This is purely another political issue that the West is trying to exaggerate," said Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based strategy and military analyst."
  • China’s Private Airlines Succumb to Competition They Created [Bloomberg] "China’s private airlines created competition for state-controlled carriers, just as the government wanted. Now, they are the ones suffering from it. China’s roughly 20 private carriers have stumbled amid a cooling economy, slowing demand and rising capacity. They have also received no government aid. By contrast, China Southern Airlines Co., the nation’s biggest carrier, and other state- controlled airline groups have won bailouts totaling more than 13 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) to help them weather the slowdown."
  • Health workers told to monitor rural China to prevent hand-foot-mouth disease [Xinhua] "China's Health Minister Chen Zhu urged grassroots level medical staff Saturday to fan out across the countryside to detect and prevent cases of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD), which has killed at least 19 children this year. The staff should visit every village and even every household to detect HFMD quickly, he told a tele-conference of disease prevention in the central provinces of Henan and Hubei and the eastern province of Shandong."
  • China encourages Buddhism-Science dialogue to promote building harmonious society [Xinhua] "Sakyamuni's followers carried out a rare face-to-face dialogue with science workers in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi Sunday in hope to converge their wisdom and jointly build a harmonious society... It is acknowledged by both Buddhists and experts of social sciences that Buddha is a human being, but not a god, and everybody's destiny is in his own hand, not in Buddha's. " Er... what?
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By Elaine Chow in on March 30, 2009 7:00 PM Comments 3 Likes Likes

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