"Continuous stream of traffic"
"One of the most underrated realities about North Korea is its very dynamic relationship with China, and the amount of information that flows across that border. Students; business people; it's a continuous stream of traffic," says Steven Linton, an American aid worker in North Korea. With that traffic come thousands of DVDs, CDs, cellular telephones, used computers and videotapes -- many of them from China and South Korea. Many Koreans in China make a living by setting up satellite TVs at their homes to receive South Korean media. Then, they burn CDs and DVDs of the programs and sell them to North Koreans for a profit. These media are so prevalent inside North Korea now that knowledge about South Korea has become commonplace, says Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor at Korea University in Seoul. Yoo regularly talks to students and refugees from North Korea.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127836840
Google stops censorship in China?
Websites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements can now all be accessed through Google's Chinese search engine, after the company said it would no longer abide by Beijing's censorship rules. Despite Google's own insistence that its policies had not changed, people in Beijing found that it was not necessarily the case. The first phrase typed into Google.cn was "Xinjiang independence," and the top result was a Wikipedia entry about the East Turkestan independence movement. "Tiananmen Square massacre" was typed in, producing a long list of results appeared, detailing the military crackdown on protesters on 4 June 1989. The famous picture of a lone man blocking a line of tanks was among them.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35886780/ns/business-world_business
China's Human-flesh Search Engines
Human-flesh search engines have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It is crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online -- with offline results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html?pagewanted=print
Chinese Propaganda Made in Finland
The People's Republic of China has strengthened its communications foothold in Europe. A 30-person team in Tampere broadcasts multilingual state-sponsored programming throughout Europe. Experts say the Chinese government is attempting to exert influence with non-critical programming. Chinese-funded Radio86 in Tampere produces radio shows and online content in ten different languages, including Finnish, English, Estonian, Danish, Russian, German, and French. Listeners around Europe can tune into the station at Finnish broadcaster YLE's former medium wave frequency of 963 kHz. The station is run in cooperation with FutuVision Media, a company based in the Finnish city of Tampere. Programme makers have had no problem recruiting people to help produce the multilingual programming, as Tampere is a vibrant university town with many international students. Radio86 fails to take a critical look at events in China, such as human rights abuses. Instead, the station focuses on culture and travel. Some of the station’s programming comes from state-run China Radio International, which also funds the station. Station head Jutta Valkeinen insists no media is objective.
