Hopes for Democracy in China

Wukan, China- 12,000 citizens are expected to vote

The small agricultural village of Wukan, Guangdong is the scene of something seldom witnessed in China today democratic elections. Elections have been held for decades all over China at local levels but they have seldomly been as hotly contested as those taking place today. This is due to recent rare reforms by the ruling authoriatrian Communist Party who have allotted greater powers to the local village leadership councils in the face of growing civil unrest.

Many village residents are furious due to to perceived illegal seizures of agricultural land and Premier Wen Jiabao has told his people that they will vow to give local residents greater protection against rural land seizures, pointing to its failings in this regard in the past.

China Under Water

Running concurrent to the unprecedented disaster in Pakistan was the extraordinarily devastating mudslides in mainland China. The nation has took part in a day of mourning yesterday, the whole country observing 3 minutes of silence. At 10 AM the Chinese Premier Wen Jibao paid silent tribute to the fallen ahead of a party meeting.

All across the country concerts were cancelled. Also, cinemas and karaoke bars across the nation were ordered closed. Even more interesting is that some Government websites changed their backdrops to black. China doesn't have many national displays of mourning, however, it is clear that when it does it is not a half hearted effort.

Disaster Continues in Pakistan

Starting last week the news wires broke the story of the torrential floods in Pakisatan. The TV and internet showed reports of catastrophic waves of water literally submerging vast expanses of land and claiming the lives of hundreds of citizens.

At the same time the news networks over here were running the story of the Pakistani President's trips to Europe including a much publicised meeting with the British Prime Minister David Cameron after his recent visit to India where he claimed Pakistan was a supporting terrorists in its borders, something that drew significant dissent from the Government in Pakistan. One interviewee speaking on Sky News claimed that President Zadari's trip in terms of the scale of the disaster would have been something akin  to George W Bush talking his whole Senate on holiday during the Katrina disaster.

Google V China Continues

In January of this year the world's most populous country came to blows with the world's most popular superpower, online behemoth, Google. The conflict originated over the Chinese Government's attempt to hack into G-mail accounts belonging to human rights workers in the country. The search engine also took issue with China's censorship of certain content online such as the Tienanmen Square massacre.

While the story did make headlines across the world and the search engine operators were lauded for not bowing to the pressure of the rising superpower to heavily censor its results. Since January Google.cn has remained accessible from the Chinese mainland however, beginning March 22nd users of Google in China were redirected to google.com.hk where users could attain entirely uncensored search results.