In Burma, official media are weighing-in on a story that rarely gets covered in the government press: crime. The story involves a clash between soldiers and civilians that left two men dead. The incident reportedly had witnesses and comes at a sensitive time ahead of the country's first election in two decades.  

And now the Burmese government is accusing foreign media of distorting the incident to encourage public unrest.

Its mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, has described the shooting as a "drunken brawl."  It reports the two men were shot and killed last week when young soldiers opened fire on a group of youths following a traffic accident in the city of Bago. The story explicitly states the incident was not a fight between the military and the public. ...Read more

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The Chinese have long been encouraged to be hardworking by their political leaders. They are proud to be able to ”chi ku” (eat something bitter) for a long time. It is the sign that an individual will certainly succeed.

It is also one of the reasons why China products are so inexpensive. Factory workers are famous for being very hardworking. They often keep pushing themselves 12 hours a day, 29 days a week, to produce as many pieces as possible.

However, this is changing fast, most notably for two reasons: ...Read more

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Fairly regularly, we get an email from a foreigner living in China who wants to go into business in China with their girlfriend/fiancé/wife’s family (yes it is always a male). This person wants to know how they can do this and we tell them that there are really only two ways. One is as a joint venture and the other is as a WFOE, with the Chinese girlfriend/fiancé/wife’s family owning a portion of the foreign company that in turns owns the WFOE. Under this second scenario, the Chinese ownership of the foreign company is potentially illegal under Chinese law, but that should not put the foreigner at risk.

Here is what I typically say: 

Legally, you pretty much cannot go into business with Chinese citizens without a joint venture. China recently started allowing partnerships, but the impact of that is still not clear. ...Read more

Australia's first minority government for 70 years has started work following the closest election result in the country's history. Now Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard must get her coalition to address a range of issues ranging from immigration to the needs of rural communities.

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While the state government limps through its 10th week without a budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is flying to Asia on Thursday with an entourage of about 30 state employees — most of their travel courtesy of a Chinese billionaire — to...

Good Morning. It's Wednesday, September 8, 2010. At this hour, US equity futures are higher. Overseas, the Asian markets were mixed, while the European markets are mixed. Oracle (ORCL) says Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) lawsuit acts in disregard to their partnership. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said: "Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner. By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees. The HP board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace."...Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and ZymoGenetics (ZGEN) announced that the companies signed a definitive agreement providing for the acquisition of ZymoGenetics by Bristol-Myers Squibb, for $9.75 per share in cash. ...Read more

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City Sun, September 8, 2010

Today's City Sun (城市信报), a commercial morning paper published in Qingdao by the Dazhong News Group.

The paper's top story concerns the apprehension of a criminal gang that smashed up a hotel nightclub on March 27 and engaged in drug trafficking. Nie Lei, the ringleader, was arrested along with more than 130 other gang members.

Perhaps of more interest to readers is the front-page feature story, which asks "How many bottles of genuine Maotai are there in Qingdao?" ...Read more

George Soros, the billionaire financier, pictured, is giving
US$100-million to a human rights organization in one of the largest
acts of philanthropy this year. New York-based Human Rights Watch,
which is dedicated to investigating human rights abuses, plans to
use the money to add more than a third more staff to its 300
employees. The money will also be used to raise the profile of the
organization and its work in rapidly developing economies such as
China and India. The donation from Mr. Soros was announced weeks
after Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, two of the U.S.'s richest and
best-known billionaires, tried to persuade fellow members of the
world's financial elite to give more to charity.

China's largest private-sector employer is moving to abandon its quasi-socialist baggage -- but it may prove tough to offload.

Jack embarrasses himself July 22 at the Kentucky Farm Bureau by using the discredited "gateway" theory to justify the continued senseless prohibition on the farming of industrial hemp, which is allowed in just about every other industrialized nation in the world except the United States. If Jack truly cared about Kentucky farmers as much as he claims to, he would be in favor of allowing them to grow a valuable cash crop that we currently have to import from all around the world, including from major producing countries such as Canada, China, and France. For more information on the many uses of industrial hemp, see here: en.wikipedia.org www.torontohemp.com Jack's reefer madness doesn't end there however. Jack doesn't even think sick and disabled people such as cancer and AIDS patients and returning veterans suffering from their injuries should be allowed to relieve their symptoms through the use of marijuana under the care of a doctor ( www.youtube.com ). ...Read more