The court has rejected the appeal of the four “cyber-dissidents.”

I really can’t describe how tragic this is. With prison sentences up to 10 years (!), the four Internet essayists now have no hope,

There was that glimmer of hope just a few days ago when their appeal was being considered. Hope, not just for the “subversives,” but for China itself. Hope that they could truly demonstrate an easing of their obsession with control of people’s minds, hope that things were truly changing. Hope that there was some substance behind Hu’s promises of reforming the media.

And then the criminals themselves. I try to visualize it. I try to imagine what 10 years in a Chinese prison might be like. I can’t.

In a related story, 500 brave Chinese intellectuals have signed a petition demanding the release of another Internet subversive, Du Daobin. The most optimistic aspect of the story is that the 500 have not been arrested themselves — yet.

But this was the scariest article of all, warning us that absolutely no one is safe in China when it comes to “cyber-subversion.”

A Chinese crackdown on online activism — highlighted by a mounting wave of arrests and trials — is unlike other recent government campaigns, because anyone can become a victim, experts said Monday.

The year-long detention of Liu Di, an ordinary Beijing student who posted democracy essays on the Internet, shows that this time the target is not just a well-defined group of open-mouthed intellectuals.

“What you see is a pattern in which the government is arresting more and more people who are not ‘dissidents’,” said Bobson Wong, a New York-based researcher on the social impact of the Internet.

“Liu Di wasn’t a dissident, she was just a kid.”

How ironic, that only weeks ago Hu was being congratulated as a reformer, someone who really wants to change things. Some have speculated that he really does, but his hands are tied by the local courts and authorities. I can’t believe that. If he truly wanted to take action, he could.

Links via Radio Free China, possibly the most important site for those who wish to keep track of the CCP’s crimes and misdemeanors.

In case you don’t know, Singapore’s in a tizzy over a controversial law that makes oral sex a crime. I can’t write it up better than Conrad has, so see his post and whatever you do, don’t miss the comments (especially Hemlock’s; I was laughing out loud).

I just saw Bill Clinton on the news addressing the AIDS conference in China, and once more I realized just how great a communicator he is, right up there with Ronald Reagan and Tony Blair.

Clinton’s words were dramatic. He said China’s window of opportunity for “stopping AIDS in its tracks” was fast disappearing, but that there still was time.

Most movingly, he brought up to the podium a 21-year-old Chinese man infected with AIDS after a blood transfusion. This was so important, to give a face to AIDS, China’s great taboo. The young man is now an AIDS activist and he addressed the audience. This sort of thing is unprecedented in China.

This conference was momentous in every way. The speakers actually criticized the government’s AIDS policy, a sign that, at least when it comes to talk, China is loosening the reins — a little, and very slowly. (After all, the AIDS problem goes back to the 80s.)

But sadly, not a single high-ranking Chinese official chose to attend the conference despite the ultra-high-profile speakers, including Nobel Prize winner Dr. David Ho, pioneer of the AIDS “cocktail.”

This tells me that, as always, the Party is still not ready or willing to come to grips with AIDS. The messages at this conference were powerful, but it is only the CCP that can turn them into action. As long as they distance themselves from the crisis, the more perilous it will become. They have absolutely no time anymore. They have to act now. This is truly a ticking time bomb.

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

China may be the fastest- growing economy in East Asia but it is not in danger of overheating, said the country’s top government economist.

Key economic indicators such as retail sales, fixed asset investment and real estate investment figures will likely grow far slower this year than they did 10 years ago, when China’s economy last overheated and grew 13.5 per cent, said National Bureau of Statistics commissioner Li Deshui.

Well, if China’s statistics wizard says it, it’s okay by me. We all know their track record with statistics. I’ll sleep a little more soundly tonight.

An encouraging sign, at last! It could be quite significant. From the NY Times:

The Chinese government has started providing free treatment for poor people with H.I.V. and AIDS and plans to expand the program next year until every poor person who has tested positive is receiving medical help, a top Health Ministry official said in a speech this week.

The speech on Thursday by Gao Qiang, the executive deputy health minister, confirmed anecdotal reports from AIDS sufferers in central China, who say health workers began handing out free anti-retroviral drugs several months ago in Henan Province, a region ravaged by AIDS.

[….]

Mr. Bekedam said the free drug program was the latest example of what appears to be a new, more proactive attitude toward AIDS taken by China’s senior leaders. This week, Beijing was host to one major international AIDS conference, while an AIDS meeting led by former President Bill Clinton will be held here on Monday. China also recently received a $98 million grant, largely to fight AIDS, from the Global Fund.

International pressure, especially after the SARS debacle, has apparently helped the leaders to wise up. They still face huge infrastructure challenges in dealing with the epidemic, and it needs to supply not only medication but education. With most of the people in China unaware of the dangers of AIDS and what they can do to protect themselves, the disease will continue to spread.

Nevertheless, this is a big step in the right direction.

Link via Radio Free China

Update: Adam has a good post on this topic as well. A little more pessimistic than my own, for a change.

Interesting. I want to know who’s inflicting violence on the journalists up:

Frequent beatings make journalism the third-most dangerous occupation in China, behind work in the coalmines and in the police force, state media said.

Newspaper The Guangzhou Daily cited official statistics showing more than 260 cases of violence against reporters in China over the past three years.

Attacks of various kinds have added to risks inherent in the profession, such as being near natural disasters, according to the paper.

The paper did not report if any of the hundreds of recent cases had led to journalists’ deaths.

It also did not give any details about the violence, or whether is was performed by government officials or private citizens.

I wonder if journalism is this dangerous anywhere else? (I would imagine it’s far worse in Iraq and any other war-torn country.)

For those intrigued with the Pvt. Jessica Lynch saga and its implications, there’s a thought-provoking article today from NYT critic/pundit Frank Rich that underscores Pvt. Lynch’s own dignity and the lack of dignity of those who have sought to manipulate her and her story:

Few of this war’s images have had such longevity or proven more pliable than that of the smiling face of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. In the seven months of virtual silence since her rescue from a Nasiriya hospital, she has become the Mona Lisa of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Americans have been able to read into her pleasant but unrevealing snapshot whatever story they choose. Those stories, usually imposed on her by others, have become a Rorschach test for homefront mood swings.

When American forces were bogged down in the war’s early days, she was the happy harbinger of an imminent military turnaround: a 19-year-old female Rambo who tried to blast her way out of the enemy’s clutches, taking out any man who got in her way. When those accounts turned out to be largely fiction, she became a symbol of Bush administration propaganda and the press’s war-time credulity in buying it. Then came her months of muffled recuperation: a metaphor for the low-grade fever of inertia and unease that has set in at home in the months since that Saddam statue fell.

Particulary moving were these two pararagraphs (not that I’m a big fan of Cher as a political activist):

The Bush administration tries to shut down pictures as effectively as it has stonewalled Congressional committees and the bipartisan commissions looking into intelligence failures surrounding 9/11. On the day of the Chinook’s fall, the president stayed off-camera on his ranch in Crawford, resting up for his next round of fund-raisers, and sent out only a written statement of grief. Reuters reported on Monday that journalists seeking access to Ramstein, the American air base in Germany to which Private Lynch was first taken, had been told that the defense department would not lift its policy prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins, even for the Chinook casualties. The president did not go to the funerals of the nine fellow soldiers who died in the same ambush that led to Private Lynch’s capture; he hasn’t gone to any funerals for soldiers killed in action, The Washington Post reports.

Two weeks ago, after spending the day visiting the wounded at Walter Reed, the same hospital where Private Lynch recuperated upon returning to the United States, Cher, of all people, crystallized the game plan. She called into C-Span to tell of her experience talking with “a boy about 19 or 20 who had lost both his arms” and then asked: “Why are none of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bremer, the president — why aren’t they taking pictures with all these guys? Because I don’t understand why these guys are so hidden and why there aren’t pictures of them.”

This is something Bush could/should ameliorate fast. Will he?

Link via Atrios.

Or “Why they Love Us.” From Fox News:

The U.S. military swept through Iraqi neighborhoods early Saturday, firing at houses suspected to be harboring hostile forces in the wake of an apparent attack on a Black Hawk helicopter that killed six U.S. soldiers.

Backed by Bradley fighting vehicles, American troops bombarded buildings with machine guns and heavy weapons fire.

“This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them,” said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment.

I really do understand the need to use force in the wake of the downing of a US helicopter. But shooting at houses like this seems a rather random approach that can only win us more hardened enemies. Imagine if it was your house, with your kids inside.

Link via TPM, who also posts this wonderful quote from Dick Cheney on the stump yesterday:

In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with al Qaeda — and his regime is no more.

Cultivated??

Why is Cheney doing this? How long can he be allowed by Bush to consciously continue a blatant disinformation campaign?

Don’t get me wrong — Saddam is right up there with the world’s nastiest men. But there’s plenty we can say about him that is true; why does Cheney insist on playing up the extremely shaky (and probably non-existent) al-Qaeda link?

The fact that he does so indicates he has a deep and cynical contempt for the intelligence of the American people. (I guess if he can actually get away with it, that contempt may, sadly, be justified. I hope not.)

Police with guns drawn burst into a South Carolina high school yesterday looking for….marijuana! (They didn”t find any.)

Surveillance video from Stratford High School in Goose Creek shows 14 officers, some with guns drawn, ordering students to lie the ground as police searched for marijuana. Students who didn’t comply with the orders quickly enough were reportedly handcuffed.

What is wrong with these people? What were they thinking? How could they do somethjing so blatantly wrong and stupid?

It’s a dizzying time for Taiwan as it takes the lead in Asia when it comes to human rights, not just in words but in legislation. Now, they have just announced a law for the abolition of the death penalty — and the legalization of gay marriage and womens rights as a bonus!

Taiwan on Saturday unveiled its draft Human Rights Basic Law which abolishes the death penalty and legalises gay marriage.

If the law is passed, it will make Taiwan the first country in Asia – and the fourth in the world – to legalise gay marriage. The Netherlands, Belgium and Canada have legalised gay marriage.

Vice President Lu Hsiu-lien, head of the Human Rights Consultative Committee under the Presidential Office, unveiled the draft law at a meeting with reporters.

The Basic Law stipulates that the death penalty must be abolished, gay marriage should be legalised and homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt children.

The Basic Law bans cloning human beings, protects equal rights for women and foreign workers, and grants asylum to foreign asylum seekers.

70 percent of the Taiwanese public is reportedly against the ban on the death penalty, so there will be “an adjustment period,” where it remains legal but won’t be executed carried out.

(Update Nov. 9, 1:50 pm.)