Friday, February 26, 2016
As time goes by in Shanghai (Video)
Shanghai's Peace Old Jazz Band have been performing in China since the 1940s. We follow the band on a challenging trip.
Shanghai's Peace Old Jazz Band has been performing together since 1980, but the group's members have been playing much longer than that. Aged between 65 and 87 years, many of them have been playing jazz since the 1940s and have seen the world around them transform.
From the Japanese occupation and the Cultural Revolution to capitalism on overdrive, the band members have seen the many faces of China and withstood the government's suspicions of jazz. Through ages of political upheaval, they never lost their faith and belief in their music.
Now comes one of their biggest challenges: each year Rotterdam hosts the North Sea Jazz Festival and this year, Peace Old Jazz plans to make the trip. Follow them and director Uli Gaulke as they make the hopeful journey to win the love of the festival's audience.
From the Japanese occupation and the Cultural Revolution to capitalism on overdrive, the band members have seen the many faces of China and withstood the government's suspicions of jazz. Through ages of political upheaval, they never lost their faith and belief in their music.
Now comes one of their biggest challenges: each year Rotterdam hosts the North Sea Jazz Festival and this year, Peace Old Jazz plans to make the trip. Follow them and director Uli Gaulke as they make the hopeful journey to win the love of the festival's audience.
Six In The Morning Friday February 26
Iran elections: Parliamentary poll a test for Rouhani
After nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions, voting will gauge reaction to political policies of Iran's moderates.
| Iran, Hassan Rouhani, Middle East, Elections
Iranians cast their ballots to elect new members of parliament and a council of clerics in elections seen as a referendum on President Hassan Rouhani's rule.
An estimated 50 million people are eligible to vote on a pre-selected list of candidates during the polls on Friday.
The elections take place just a month after years of economic sanctions against the country were lifted.
Surveys indicated a higher turnout compared to the previous parliamentary polls four years ago, but lower than the presidential contest that elected Rouhani in 2013.
Voting started at 8am local time (04:30 GMT).
Rouhani said he had reports of a high turnout, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Turkish journalists released from jail after court rules press freedom violated
Erdem Gül and Can Dündar charged with revealing state secrets for report alleging Erdoğan government tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria
Turkey’s constitutional court on Thursday ruled that the rights of two Turkish journalists charged with revealing state secrets in a hugely controversial case had been violated, leading to their release after three months in jail.
The Cumhuriyet newspaper’s editor-in-chief Can Dündar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül had been detained since November over a report alleging that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria.
They had been due to go on trial on 25 March and had been held in jail for 92 days.
The constitutional court, which convened to discuss the journalists’ individual petitions, ruled that their “rights to personal liberty and security had been violated”, the court said in a statement on its website.
Lying Press? Germans Lose Faith in the Fourth Estate
Germans are losing faith in their media. Nowhere is this more apparent than in mistrust of refugee crisis media coverage. Where did journalists go wrong? And how much of this skepticism reflects a preference for rumors over facts? By SPIEGEL Staff
You couldn't ask for a better reader than Isolde Beck. She has had subscriptions to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Badische Neueste Nachrichten and SPIEGEL for many years. And as a retiree, she takes the time to thoroughly read through the newspapers and magazine.
But her relationship with the media has become troubled in recent weeks. She has the feeling that the "news is being suppressed" and that journalists are no longer allowed to "articulate certain things." Beck has stopped believing what the journalists write.
These feelings prompted her to send SPIEGEL an irate letter to the editor in early January regarding a cover story about the sexual violence in Cologne. "We can no longer assume that there is a democracy or even freedom of expression in this country anymore," she wrote, "and the media are complicit, for the most part, perhaps out of reluctance to alienate interviewees, or perhaps because it appears to be gratifying to manipulate readers or to make fun of them, however you want to put it." In retrospect, says Beck, she would not have expressed her thoughts quite as drastically.
Togo: Inside a school without tables or chairs
OBSERVERS
Schoolchildren in the village of Amato in Togo do their best to learn what they can in class, despite not having even the most basic facilities. Since the school was founded 20 years ago, the number of pupils in attendance has soared, yet there still aren't any tables or chairs for them to sit on.
Outraged by the situation faced by Amato's schoolchildren, Oscar, an activist who works for an NGO that focuses on Togo's development, sent us his photos of the school. He's decided to take a stand against his country's crumbling education infrastructure.
Outraged by the situation faced by Amato's schoolchildren, Oscar, an activist who works for an NGO that focuses on Togo's development, sent us his photos of the school. He's decided to take a stand against his country's crumbling education infrastructure.
"Only the head teacher has an official state job, the other teachers have to be paid by the parents!"
In Amato, the primary school was launched back in 1994, but the building promised by the authorities was never built. As a result, it's a shoddy DIY job. There are five classrooms: some have walls made from straw, and others don't even have walls, only roofs. Roofs are built from either sheet metal or straw. In either case, it means that the school isn't properly sheltered from the outside. So when it rains, all the pupils go home. During the summer rainy season, there are hardly any classes for three months!
Khmer Rouge survivor Bunhom Chhorn films return to camp of his childhood
Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
Phnom Penh: Bunhom Chhorn saw the black-uniformed killers in his nightmares as he was growing up in Melbourne.
"They appeared stark and terrifyingly real, always trying to catch me or do me harm," he says.
Bunhom tried to push the images away as he studied, worked night-shift in a factory and then won a place in a documentary-making course.
He never told his friends he was a child survivor of a death camp under communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas who stormed Cambodia's cities in 1975, driving millions of people into the countryside at gunpoint, in one of the most deadly revolutions of modern times.
Ex-Mexican president Fox: 'I'm not going to pay for that f***ing wall'
Updated 0054 GMT (0854 HKT) February 26, 2016
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox is making his position clear on Donald Trump's pledge to make Mexico pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"I'm not going to pay for that f***ing wall. He should pay for it," Fox told Fusion's Jorge Ramos in an interview published Thursday.
Trump quickly responded on Twitter.
"FMR PRES of Mexico, Vicente Fox horribly used the F word when discussing the wall. He must apologize! If I did that there would be a uproar!" he tweeted.
Fox, who was president from 2000-2006, also pushed back on Trump's claim that he was winning support among Latinos, after entrance polls at Tuesday's Nevada caucuses showed him winning Latino Republican caucusgoers.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Syria: Under Russia's fist
We investigate the horrifying consequences for civilians under Russian air strikes in Syria.
Since September 30, 2015, Russia has been carrying out air strikes in Syria in support of its ally President Bashar al-Assad. The campaign has been relentless and growing in intensity, with Russian jets flying 444 combat sorties against more than 1,500 targets between February 10 and 16 alone.
Moscow insists these attacks have been aimed only at fighters from ISIL and other "terrorist groups" such as al-Nusra Front. But monitoring groups, including the Violations Documentation Center and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, say thousands of non-combatants have also been killed or wounded. Amnesty International and others have said the bombings may be war crimes. Indeed, Amnesty has also cited consistent reports of second bombardments from planes returning to kill and injure rescue workers, paramedics and civilians attempting to evacuate the wounded and the dead from earlier raids.
Six In The Morning Thursday February 25
TEPCO: Fukushima meltdown announcement made months late
Updated 0839 GMT (1639 HKT) February 25, 2016
The reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant hit by a devastating tsunami in 2011 should have been announced much sooner, the operator admitted this week.
In a statement, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said that a public declaration of the meltdown should have been done within days of the disaster.
It did not reveal that a meltdown was taking place for almost two months.
More than 160,000 people were evacuated from the area near the Fukushima meltdown, the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Regulations ignored
The company said internal regulations that a meltdown should be declared if damage to the reactor core exceeded 5% were not followed.
How the changing media is changing terrorism
Just like news organisations, terrorists need an audience – and both have adapted their tactics to keep your attention
by Jason Burke
Thursday 25 February 2016 06.00 GMT
Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old petty criminal, spent much of the last 36 hours of his life crouched over a laptop in his small apartment in the south‑western French city of Toulouse. It was March 2012. Outside, armed police and journalists gathered. Merah reheated frozen food in a microwave and checked his weapons. He spoke with negotiators and described how he had travelled to Pakistan a few months earlier to receive some desultory training from a faction linked to al-Qaida. He also explained, incoherently, why he had killed seven people over the previous two weeks in a series of shootings. But most of the time, Merah worked on his computer.
Just a few hours before he was killed by armed police after a sustained firefight, Merah finished editing a 24-minute video clip. It was a compilation of images from the GoPro camera that he had attached to his body armour before each of his killings. GoPro primarily caters to practitioners of extreme sports who wish to obtain point-of-view footage of their adrenalin-charged exploits.
South Korea's struggle with cultural diversity
Many in South Korea have complained about what they perceive as growing intolerance against foreigners, pointing to Korean-only bars. DW takes a look at the reasons behind this development.
"When I asked in Korean, not in English, whether I could get in if I spoke the language, I was told I still wasn't allowed." These are the words of 24-year-old Megan Stuckey talking to The Korea Herald about her recent experience of being denied entry into a bar in Hongdae, a popular multicultural area in the country's capital Seoul.
Stuckey told the English language newspaper that she wasn't allowed in because she was a foreigner. In fact, a sign at the entrance read: "Only Koreans are allowed in because our employees cannot communicate in English."
Cases like these are, however, not uncommon in South Korea.
In 2014, African expatriates in South Korea were denied entry into a pub in Itaewon, an area in Seoul popular amongst young people. A sign outside the establishment at the time read: "We apologize but due to the Ebola virus, we are not accepting Africans at the moment."
Indian armed forces to open all combat roles to women
Indian President says women will be allowed to occupy combat roles in all sections of the army, navy and air force.
India has announced that women will be allowed to occupy combat roles in all sections of its army, navy and air force, indicating a radical move to gender parity in one of the world's most-male dominated professions.
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee announced the move on Tuesday while addressing both houses of the parliament before the budget session, saying that the government would in the future recruit women for fighting roles in India's armed forces.
India, which has one of the largest armies in the world, has previously resisted such a move, citing concerns over women's vulnerability if captured and over their physical and mental ability to cope with the stress of frontline deployments.
Why did the arbitration court reject transparent booths in FIFA election?
Prince Ali of Jordan had asked for transparent booths to be used in the Friday election, in a bid to ensure that the elections were free and fair.
The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) presidential election is expected to proceed as scheduled on Friday – and without transparent voting booths.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected the request of Prince Ali of Jordan asking the court to ensure that FIFA used transparent voting booths, his campaign team says.
Prince Ali, one of five candidates bidding to succeed outgoing FIFA President Sepp Blatter, is seeking reassurances over the voting procedure for the election and had called for a postponement if his concerns were not answered. He had asked for the use of transparent booths to ensure delegates don’t photograph their ballot papers when they choose the next president, claiming that the delegates could be put under pressure to produce evidence of their vote to interested parties.
South China Sea face off: The mystery of Woody Island
A single report that the PRC had deployed surface-to-air missiles in the South China Sea created quite the media firestorm. What if I told you, as the Internet meme goes, it was just a case of Same Old Same Old?
Fox News got the ball rolling with an Exclusive! on February 16, declaring on the basis of commercial satellite imagery provided to Fox China sends surface-to-air missiles to contested island in provocative move.
What you see from the commercial imagery is fuzzy boxes. The official confirmation:
A US official confirmed the accuracy of the photos. The official said the imagery viewed appears to show the HQ-9 air defense system, which closely resembles Russia’s S-300 missile system.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Kidnapped Swedish teen rescued from ISIS first interview
Marlin Stivani Nivarlain is a 15-year-old Swedish girl. Last year, her boyfriend became obsessed with ISIS, and she followed him to Syria to join the group.
Last week, Kurdish forces stormed an ISIS-held town near Mosul, Iraq, where they found Nivarlain and rescued her.
Shortly after her rescue, Nivarlain was interviewed by the Kurdish outlet Kurdistan 24, and described her boyfriend's radicalization, her trip to ISIS-held territory, the miserable life she encountered there, and her joy at being rescued.
Nivarlain says she met her (unnamed) boyfriend in mid-2014. "At first, we were good together," she said. "Then he started watching ISIS videos, talking about ISIS, stuff like that."
She was confused when he said, months after they met, that he wanted to take her to join ISIS. "I said OK, because I didn't know what ISIS is, what Islam means, nothing," Nivarlain explained.
Six In The Morning Wednesday February 24
Two India 'sedition' students surrender to police
- 24 February 2016
- India
Two Indian students accused of sedition for helping organise a protest at Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), have handed themselves into police.
Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya were among several wanted by police.
The arrest of JNU student union head Kanhaiya Kumar earlier this month led to protests and clashes across India.
The 9 February protest over the 2013 hanging of a Kashmiri man allegedly saw the chanting of anti-India slogans.
After Mr Kumar was arrested the other students named in connection with the protests went missing but they resurfaced at JNU on Sunday night.
Police did not enter the campus but late on Tuesday night Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya left university premises of their own accord and handed themselves over. Police cannot enter without permission from university authorities, reports say.
The Black Fish: undercover with the vigilantes fighting organised crime at sea
Illegal fishing controlled by organised crime is a growing menace, offering big rewards for low risk. But the seaborne raiders have a new force to contend with. An army of amateur sleuths are spending their holidays fighting backOn 2 August, a flotilla of white-hulled fishing boats assembled in Sant’Agata di Militello, a port in northern Sicily, in the late afternoon sun. As a brass band played, a holiday crowd gathered along the quay. A float bearing a statue of the Virgin Mary, crowned with a halo of gold and decorated with white flowers, was loaded onto one of the craft. With the priest and the brass band on board, the vessel, decked out in palm fronds, puttered out into the bay. As the Madonna was borne over the waves in the annual ritual to bless the sea’s harvest, onlookers crowded onto the other boats, which began to follow in the vessel’s wake, their lights winking on in the dusk.
While the crowd’s eyes were fixed on the Madonna, a clean-cut, compactly-built man with neat blond hair joined the melee and crossed a gangplank onto one of the boats. As the skipper cast off, his craft now filled with revellers, the blond man slipped below deck, unseen. The stowaway, a Dutchman named Wietse van der Werf, was a former ship’s engineer and knew his way around boats. He soon found what he was looking for: an orange nylon driftnet neatly folded under a tarpaulin. Known as “curtains of death” for the indiscriminate destruction they visit on whales, seabirds, dolphins and sharks, such nets – which can be 20km long and the height of a 10-storey building – are subject to strict international controls. As guests on deck watched fireworks bursting above the bay, Van der Werf filmed the driftnet on his phone.
Amnesty report: Global refugee situation 'disastrous'
Amnesty International's latest annual report paints a bleak picture of human rights around the world. The international organization has also criticized Europe's handling of the refugee crisis.
"I feel that humanity is dead," a Yemeni woman says, as she stands amid the ruins of what was once a school, gesturing at the rubble. "For a place of learning to be hit in this way, without warning."
Yemen - along with Syria, Libya and other Middle Eastern and African states - features prominently in Amnesty International's annual report, released Wednesday. Armed conflicts in those countries have killed thousands of people and driven millions from their homes, sparking a refugee crisis with global ramifications.
"Probably 2015 is one of the worst years in recent times that I can recall," Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty said in an interview with DW from London.
"The very system which was created to protect human rights - a system which has been built up over the last 70 years - is itself under threat."
Hopes and ‘honour’ killings
RAFIA ZAKARIA
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently watched A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Oscar-nominated documentary about ‘honour’ killings. In a statement following the screening, he told Ms Chinoy and his audience that there is no ‘honour’ in murder.
In the days since it has been announced that the government will move to plug holes in laws that currently allow killers (often family members) to go unpunished. Ms Chinoy has expressed the hope that her film would help put an end to honour killings in Pakistan.
It would be wonderful if her wish came true. The reasons it will not are the ones that the government needs to address if it truly wishes to tackle the problem.
Is China installing a high-tech radar system in the South China Sea?
A US think tank says satellite images show China building a new high-frequency radar system in the Spratly Islands, a move intended to boost their control of the region.
A report released Monday by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative says overhead images of the artificial island above Cuarteron Reef from January to mid-February show two probable radar towers and a number of 65-foot poles.
CSIS warns this could be a significant step in a long-term Chinese plan to assert control over the air and sea lanes of the disputed South China Sea.
S. Korea dismisses China warning on US missile system
AFP
South Korea Wednesday dismissed China's warning that the planned deployment of a US missile defence system could damage ties, stressing that it was to counter "growing threats" from North Korea.
"The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system (THAAD) is a measure of self-defence against growing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea," presidential spokesman Jeong Yeon-Guk said.
Jeong said the issue would be "decided in accordance with security and national interests," adding that "China will have to recognise the point."
The remarks came after Chinese ambassador Qiu Guohong Tuesday warned that installation of the THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula could "destroy" relations between Beijing and Seoul.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Guantanamo's Child - Omar Khadr (Video)
Unprecedented access and an exclusive interview with Omar Khadr during his first days of freedom.
At 15 Omar Khadr was held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Now 28 years old, after 13 years locked away, he is finally able to speak about his experiences. He was branded as a terrorist and convicted as a murderer.
"I don't wish people to love me, I don't wish people to hate me, I just wish for people to give me a chance," Khadr says.
In 2002, during a military firefight, as a young teen, Khadr was alleged to have thrown a grenade at US troops in Afghanistan, killing one soldier. After a decade at the US-run detention camp, he was transferred to a maximum security facility in Canada.
The Canadian national was released on bail on May 7, 2015 and is appealing his conviction.
In his first full-length interview since his release, Khadr talks to Al Jazeera's Witness about his arrest and subsequent detention and conditions at the controversial military prison.
The 3 Year Old Sentenced To Life In Prison
Ahmed Mansour was sentenced to life in prison for a crime that was committed in January of 2014 after an Egyptian military court found him and 115 other guilty of killing 3 people and destroying public and private property. Mansour was 16 months old at the time of his alleged involvement in this crime which took place during a demonstration supporting former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi .
Father on the run
Father on the run
When the police first came to arrest Ahmed in early 2014 and realized he was a toddler, they took his father -- Mansour Qorany Sharara -- instead.
Sharara was detained for four months before a judge released him.
Lawyers of other defendants in the case had shown the court Ahmed's birth certificate in hopes of discrediting the investigations that led to their clients' arrests.
Trusting justice
The guilty verdict that came out on February 16 caused an uproar.
"How could people trust justice if they see this?" TV presenter Wael El-Ebrashy said as he interviewed Sharara on Saturday.
Ahmed was sleeping as his father held him and cried, pleading for help during the interview. Sharara said he was worried his son would be imprisoned.
Six In The Morning Tuesday February 23
India caste unrest: Water supply 'partially restored' in Delhi
- 23 February 2016
- India
Water supply has been partially restored in the Indian capital, Delhi, where up to 10 million were affected after protesters sabotaged a key canal.
The army took control of the Munak canal in neighbouring Haryana state on Monday after Jat community protesters, angry at caste job quotas, seized it.
Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra said the "crisis was still not over" and urged people to use water carefully.
The city's schools, which were closed because of the crisis, have reopened.
Sixteen million people live in Delhi, and around three-fifths of the city's water is supplied by the Munak canal, which runs through Haryana.
Mr Mishra tweeted on Tuesday morning that "some water has been released" from the canal. This had led to the restoration of partial supplies in north and central Delhi, he said.
Iran elections: why are they important and who is running?
Elections for the Majlis, or Iranian parliament, and assembly of experts, which will appoint the next supreme leader, are taking place on Friday
On Friday Iranians will vote in two elections, the first to be held since a landmark nuclear agreement was signed last year under which international sanctions were lifted.
Why are the elections important?
Although the presidential election is not due until next year, Friday’s elections for the next Majlis (the Iranian parliament) and the assembly of experts (the clerical body in charge of appointing the next supreme leader) come at a critical time. For more than a decade, conservatives dominated Iran’s main political institutions, but Hassan Rouhani’s victory in the 2013 presidential election changed that. Rouhani’s government is run by moderates, but other institutions such as parliament are still dominated by conservatives. Both of Friday’s elections are a battleground between hardliners already in power and moderate and pro-reform figures seeking a comeback.
Are they fair?
The short answer is no, but that does not mean they are not competitive. In 2013 Rouhani, an approved candidate, created an extraordinary momentum for changeand was elected on a mandate considered at home and abroad to be legitimate.
Syria civil war: The untold story of the siege of two small Shia villages - and how the world turned a blind eye
Villages that remained loyal to the Syrian regime have paid a steep price
This is the untold story of the three-and-a-half-year siege of two small Shia Muslim villages in northern Syria. Although their recapture by the Syrian army – and by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi Shia militias – caught headlines for a few hours three weeks ago, the world paid no heed to the suffering of these people, their 1,000 “martyrs”, at least half of them civilians, and the 100 children who died of shellfire and starvation.
For these were villages that remained loyal to the Syrian regime and paid the price – and were thus unworthy of our attention, which remained largely fixed on those civilians suffering under siege by government forces elsewhere.
Shipwrecked migrants end up stuck in Cyprus
The Mediterranean island of Cyprus is best known as a picturesque tourist destination. However, for a group of refugees who have been stranded on a British military base there, it is more like being trapped in limbo. A Palestinian migrant who has been stuck on the base for four months after being shipwrecked shared his story.
Bilal (not his real name) is a 26-year-old Palestinian. In October 2015, he secured passage on a boat carrying about 100 migrants from Lebanon to Greece. The boat got into trouble and starting sinking off of Cyprus on October 21. The shipwrecked passengers were helped by the staff at a British Royal Air Force base on Cyprus. However, the United Kingdom has refused to consider the refugees’ asylum applications. Since then, Bilal has been living on the British base, called Dhekhelia.
Bilal (not his real name) is a 26-year-old Palestinian. In October 2015, he secured passage on a boat carrying about 100 migrants from Lebanon to Greece. The boat got into trouble and starting sinking off of Cyprus on October 21. The shipwrecked passengers were helped by the staff at a British Royal Air Force base on Cyprus. However, the United Kingdom has refused to consider the refugees’ asylum applications. Since then, Bilal has been living on the British base, called Dhekhelia.
"The only solution is to secretly take a boat to Turkey”
They told us that we couldn’t claim asylum in the UK or in Greece, so we all claimed asylum here in Cyprus, even though no one actually wants to stay here. All the Syrians had their applications accepted. Some Palestinians did, too, so they were able to leave the military base. But there are about 30 of us still stuck here. We’re either waiting for a response or we’ve already had our application refused. We’ve been stuck here for four months. We aren’t allowed to leave, even if it is possible to get out by jumping the fence.
North Korea offered -- then rebuffed -- talks with U.S.
Updated 0047 GMT (0847 HKT) February 23, 2016
North Korea quietly reached out to U.S. officials through the United Nations in New York last fall to propose formal peace talks on ending the Korean War, a response to President Barack Obama's comments that the U.S. was willing to engage Pyongyang as it has with other rogue regimes, senior U.S. officials told CNN.
That effort fell short, the officials said, with the North Koreans refusing to include their nuclear program in any negotiations as the U.S. required and soon after testing a nuclear weapon.
But it represented a new step from the Obama administration as it tried to lure the hermetic country out of its isolation and extend its track record of successful negotiations with nations long at odds with the United States, such as Iran and Cuba.
Why China Freaks Out if You Use the Wrong Map
By Leslie Nguyen-Okwu
A family of bleary-eyed tourists strolls into Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport. Fresh from a long-haul flight, Mom drags little Tommy along while Dad takes out his handy map. A customs officer stops them in their tracks and slaps them with a fine that costs more than their Mercedes-Benz. Why? Because the Pacific giant has a hard line on any illegal map that “endangers the country’s sovereignty, safety and interests,” according to a statement from Le Weibin, the government mapping official.
You can be fined up to 200,000 yuan, about $31,400, for the “wrong” map.
That’s if you don’t wind up in jail first. Zhōngguó (中国) — the endonym for China — literally means the Middle Kingdom. Translation: China is the center of the world. And if your map, either physical or online, doesn’t comply with these rules, it’s outta there. If you’re caught distributing a map that names the Diaoyu Islands instead of the South China Sea, you’re in trouble. If it doesn’t clearly mark Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau in the same color as mainland China, it
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