Beijing air pollution 'as bad as it can get,' official says  Beijingers were warned to stay indoors on last Thursday as pollution levels across the capital hit the top of the scale, despite repeated lies by the regime that air quality was improving. "This is as bad as it can get," a spokeswoman for the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau told AFP. "Level five is the worst level of air pollution. This is as bad as it has been all year." According to the bureau's website, 15 out of the 16 pollution monitoring stations in urban Beijing registered a "five" for air quality rating. The main pollutant was suspended particulate matter, which is usually attributed to coal burning and automotive exhaust. "Old people and young children should reduce outdoor activities and protect their health," the spokeswoman said. The Beijing Evening News warned residents not to do their morning exercises on Friday as pollution levels were likely to linger over the capital until a cold front moved in and blew some of the bad air away later in the day. A lack of wind in the capital over recent days has led to a heavy cover of smog trapping in the pollutants, the paper said. By nightfall, the pollution was still horrendously thick. In the run up to the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing has vowed to clean up its air and this year set a goal of 245 "blue sky days," or days with only light pollution. As of Thursday, the city needed one more day to reach the annual goal, the bureau said. But official "blue sky days" are often hazy affairs with heavy pollution. Beijing's air quality is routinely rated among the worst in the world by international agencies such as the United Nations and the World Bank, with rampant coal burning, regular dust storms and a growing number of cars cited as the main reasons.

Beijing May Green for the Olympics, but Long-Term Forecast Is Grey

Mimi Kuo-Deemer for The New York Times

Vehicles jammed a road as a thick morning haze covered Beijing during a recent morning rush hour.

BEIJING — Every day, monitoring stations across the city measure air pollution to determine if the skies above this national capital can officially be designated blue. It is not an act of whimsy: with Beijing preparing to play host to the 2008 Olympic Games, the official Blue Sky ratings are the measuring stick for whether the city’s polluted air will be clean enough for the competition.

Choking on Growth

This is the tenth in a series of articles and multimedia examining the human toll, global impact and political challenge of China's epic pollution crisis. In Translation

Summaries of articles in this series are available in Chinese.

• Download a written translation of the tenth article. (pdf)

 Listen to a reading of the translation. (mp3)

 

Thursday did not bring good news. The grey, acrid skies rated an eye-popping 421 on a scale of 500, with 500 being the worst. Friday rated a 500. Both days far exceeded levels of pollutants deemed safe by the World Health Organisation. In Beijing, officials warned residents to stay indoors until Saturday, but residents here are accustomed to breathing foul air. One man flew a kite in Tiananmen Square.

For Beijing officials, Thursday was especially depressing because the city was hoping to celebrate an environmental victory. In recent years, Beijing has steadily increased its Blue Sky days. The city needs one more, defined as scoring below 101, to reach its goal of 245 Blue Sky days this year. These improving ratings are how Beijing hopes to reassure the world that Olympic athletes will not be gasping for breath next August.

“We’re definitely hoping for the best,” said Jon Kolb, a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee, “but preparing for the worst.”

For the world’s Olympians, Beijing’s air is a performance issue. The concern is that respiratory problems could impede athletic performance and prevent records from being broken. For the city’s estimated 12 million residents, pollution is an inescapable health and quality-of-life issue. Scepticism about the validity of the Blue Sky ratings is common. The concern is whether the city can clean itself up long after the Games are over.

Beijing has long ranked as one of the world’s most polluted cities. To win the Games, Beijing promised a “Green Olympics” and undertook environmental initiatives now considered models for the rest of the country. But greening Beijing has not meant slowing it down. Officials also have encouraged an astonishing urbanization boom that has made environmental gains seem modest, if not illusory.

Beijing is like an athlete trying to get into shape by walking on a treadmill yet eating double cheeseburgers at the same time. Polluting factories have been moved or closed. But auto emissions are rising as the city adds 1,200 new cars and trucks every day. Dirty, coal-burning furnaces have been replaced, lowering the city’s sulfur dioxide emissions. But fine-particle pollution has been exacerbated by a staggering citywide construction binge that shows no signs of letting up.

China’s unsolved riddle is how to reconcile fast economic growth with environmental protection. But Beijing’s Olympic deadline means the city needs an immediate answer. The ruling Communist Party envisions the Games as a public relations showcase and is leaving no detail untended. Scientists are cross-breeding chrysanthemums to ensure that flowers bloom in August.

Now Beijing is also going to try to manipulate air quality. For months, scientists have treated the city like a laboratory, testing wind patterns and atmospheric structure, while pinpointing local and regional pollution sources. Olympics contingency plans have been approved for Beijing and surrounding provinces. Details are not public, but officials have discussed shutting down factories and restricting traffic during the Games.

“We are determined to ensure that the air conditions meet the necessary standards in August 2008,” Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games, told the International Olympic Committee’s executive board this month.

Beijing residents overwhelmingly support the Games and understand that officials will do what is necessary to ensure clean air. Last August, the city removed a million cars from roads during a four-day test intended to gauge pollution and traffic. But people also know that any emergency measures have a limited shelf life.

“Yes, I heard about it,” said an engineer at one factory that may temporarily be shut down. “It is like you invite some guests to your home, and hide all your children underneath the bed to make the house look nicer. If all the polluting factories are shut down for the Olympics, there will be a major pollution outbreak afterward when all the factories restart, right?”

Beijing officials say the Olympics will have a lasting and positive environmental legacy on the city. International Olympic Committee officials acknowledge that air quality remains a problem but they say the air would be far worse without improvements made for the Games. “The general trend is improvement,” said Simon Balderstone, an environmental adviser for the I.O.C.

But pollution is expected to remain a major, long-term challenge as Beijing’s population may eventually exceed 20 million people. Scientists also say the city will never be able to clean itself up if surrounding industrial provinces are not cleaned up, too.

Blue skies, in other words, will remain a challenge.

Growth Offsets Gains

In July 2001, Beijing won the right to serve as the host of the 2008 Games, a victory that carried a touch of vindication. Eight years earlier, the International Olympic Committee had rejected Beijing’s first bid for a variety of reasons, including the city’s polluted environment.

This time, Beijing organizers promised a “Green Olympics.”

“Beijing has come a long way since its last bid in 1993,” said Wang Wei, a senior Beijing Olympics official, speaking at the city’s final Olympic presentation in Moscow. “The city has taken giant steps to fight pollution caused by industrialization and economic growth.”

Beijing’s environmental program had begun in 1997 and became the centerpiece of the city’s Olympic environmental commitments. Today, urban sewage treatment has doubled since 2001. Use of natural gas has jumped 38-fold as city officials have converted thousands of dirty coal-fired furnaces and boilers. Factories have been shut down or relocated to the suburbs. Millions of trees have been planted.

“For many years, the city had few environmental rules,” said Mr. Balderstone, the I.O.C. environmental adviser, who regularly consults with Beijing officials. “It’s like they are playing catch-up on a lot of these measures.”

But Beijing’s Olympic bid also intensified a stunning urban boom. Since 2000, Beijing’s gross domestic product has jumped 144 percent, according to Olympic officials. New office buildings and apartment towers seem to rise every week. More than 1.7 billion square feet of new construction has been started since 2002, most of it unrelated to the Olympics.

The emerging cityscape is often dazzling but also energy intensive and polluting. Beijing requires low-sulfur coal and had hoped to reduce coal consumption in the years before the Olympics. Instead, the city’s coal consumption peaked at 30 million tons last year. Beijing also has only one office tower that qualifies under international and national energy efficiency standards as a green building. Construction, meanwhile, is expected to continue at a rapid pace.

“I think there will be another 20 to 30 years of urbanization,” said Wu Weijia, a professor at Tsinghua University’s Institute of Urban Studies. “The scale of construction in Beijing will not slow down after the Olympics.”

Meanwhile, an explosion of car ownership has wrought gridlocked traffic and a halo of auto fumes. Beijing now has more than three million vehicles and is adding roughly 400,000 new cars and trucks each year. The city’s reliance on cars and trucks leaves its air with few reprieves. As in other cities, heavy trucks can only enter at night. Diesel exhaust is so severe that Beijing’s levels of PM 2.5, a tiny particulate deemed potentially harmful to health, is highest between midnight and 3 a.m., according to one survey.

Beijing is fighting auto pollution by instituting China’s highest vehicle emissions standards. Nearly 79,000 new taxis with lower emissions have replaced older, outdated models. But Beijing has been unwilling to discourage private car ownership by instituting exorbitant fees as other cities have done. Depending on the car, license plates in Shanghai can cost as much as $7,000; as a result, Shanghai adds about one-fourth as many cars per year as Beijing.

Beijing’s problems are compounded because its public transportation system was ignored for years. Now, the city is expanding subway lines and finishing a rail line from the airport to downtown, but car ownership is expected to keep rising.

“If you discourage people from having a car, the public transportation system would be overburdened,” said Mr. Wu, the Tsinghua professor.

Taking Pollution’s Measure

Mr. Kolb, the Canadian Olympic official, spent much of August in Beijing trying to discern the question hanging over the city as the Games approach: Has air quality actually improved?

An environmental physiologist, Mr. Kolb visited several stadiums, and sneaked into a few others, to measure pollution with a small monitoring device. On Aug. 5, his measurement of fine particles pollution, or PM 10, reached 200, roughly four times higher than that deemed safe by the World Health Organization.

“We’re worried,” Mr. Kolb said. Of Beijing air pollution, he added: “There’s no doubt about it. It’s off the charts.”

A decade ago, Beijing introduced the Blue Sky program to measure sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM 10. Under the system, monitors take regular readings of each pollutant and then calculate a 24-hour average for each. The daily Blue Sky rating is determined by whichever pollutant has the highest 24-hour average.

For China’s authoritarian government, the system represented a breakthrough. But it is less stringent than air-quality indexes in the United States. Indeed, a day that rates “good” in Beijing would usually be rated polluted in the United States.

In 1998, Beijing recorded only 100 Blue Sky days. Each ensuing year, the city has improved the number until reaching the current 244 and pending. Cleaner coal has helped reduce sulfur dioxide by 25 percent since 2001. Nitrogen dioxide is also down. But Beijing’s biggest problem is PM 10 and other particulates, which are attributed to construction, industry and cars.

Levels of PM 10 exceed national and W.H.O. standards. In 2004, the concentration of airborne particulates in Beijing equalled that of New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Atlanta combined, according to the United States Embassy in Beijing. Earlier this year, a report by the United Nations Environment Program concluded that “air pollution is still the single largest environmental and public health issue affecting the city.”

“Particularly worrying are the levels of small particulate matter (PM 10) in the atmosphere, which is severely deleterious to public health,” the report stated.

The Blue Sky system sets a maximum rating of 500, meaning that on the worst days the actual rating could be even higher. “Good” air in Beijing is any Blue Sky rating below 101. But even good air is often not very good; this year, Beijing has had 65 days that rated between 95 and 100. That bulge just inside the breakpoint has attracted attention on Web sites and even at one foreign embassy, which compiled a statistical analysis casting doubt on the Blue Sky results, though the embassy’s officials refuse to discuss the findings.

Mr. Kolb said Olympic athletes were worried about ozone, which can inflame the respiratory tract and make it more difficult to breathe. But Beijing’s monitoring system does not measure ozone, nor does it measure the finer particulates known as PM 2.5.

This year, a team of Chinese and American scientists analysed air quality issues for the Olympics and found that Beijing’s daily concentrations of PM 2.5 rated anywhere from 50 percent to 200 percent higher than American standards. Their study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, also found that ozone levels regularly exceeded American standards.

Studies are under way to assess the health impact of pollution in Beijing. One 2003 study warned that air pollution could be a major contributor to premature deaths related to chronic pulmonary disease, especially in the winter. Another study showed that visits to hospital emergency rooms rose on days with higher pollution levels.

On a recent afternoon at Beijing Hospital, Dr. Li Yi said he now saw 50 patients a day for respiratory problems compared with about half that a decade ago. He said asthma cases had increased sharply as had the number of patients with nonsmoking-related lung cancer.

“You can’t say that pollution is the only reason,” Dr. Li said. “But nonsmoking-related lung cancer is now increasing more quickly.”

Beyond the Olympics

In August, Beijing marked the one-year countdown to the Games with a celebration at Tiananmen Square and several test competitions at different sites. Jacques Rogge, president of the I.O.C., applauded Beijing’s preparations but also cautioned that pollution might force the postponement of some endurance sports.

Hu Fei, director of the Institute of Atmosphere Physics in Beijing, said any concern was misplaced. “Don’t worry about the Olympics,” Mr. Hu said, expressing confidence that contingency plans would produce clean air for the Games. “We need to be concerned about the long term.”

Mr. Hu said finding a long-term fix is difficult because of Beijing’s geography. Surrounded by mountains on three sides, Beijing depends on strong winds to disperse pollution. Yet winds also draw pollution into the city. The study in Atmospheric Environment estimated that as much as 60 percent of ozone detected at the National Stadium could be traced to outside provinces.

“Beijing is a pollution source itself, and it is surrounded by other pollution sources,” Mr. Hu said. “When you have wind, it brings in pollution from other sources. When you don’t have wind, the local pollution cannot disperse.”

Xu Jianping, 55, a business consultant, does not need to be told that Beijing is overrun with cars and construction. He is an avid in-line skater who enjoyed skating to work until pollution left him spitting out black phlegm. He went online and ordered a gas mask.

“But I don’t want to wear it,” said Mr. Xu, fearing his mask would be misinterpreted as a protest against the Olympics. “It would hurt China’s image.”

So until the Games are over, Mr. Xu is taking the bus to the office. He plans to vacation outside the city during the Games. Then, when life in Beijing returns to normal, he plans to resume skating to work — with his mask, if necessary.

from pekingduck.org

Harsh life for China's hill farmers

Another excellent article on the division between rural and urban China. For those of you that may have missed it, the following is vindication for those of us that doubted whether so many Chinese really have been lifted out of poverty as is often claimed.

For two decades, commentators have talked with pride about how many people were being pulled out of poverty. But last summer the authoritative Asian Development Bank published an official survey showing that China's economy was actually smaller and poorer than hitherto thought.

It estimated that the number of people living below the World Bank's poverty line was three times previous estimates: 300 million people living on $1 a day or less, about 50p.

When you take into account that the definition of poverty is relative to each country and that prices have been going up for many years (rapidly in recent times) in China, there will be many more Chinese with a higher income that are still struggling to make ends meet even for basics and should be considered impoverished.

Another warning for foreigners not to be blinded by the obvious changes visible in Chinese cities - China is fast becoming more economically divided than a lot of developed nations.

Toxic Fish

Another of the NY Times's excellent series on China titled "Choking on Growth," this article might make you think long and hard about that seafood you love ordering at the local restaurant in China. Unfortunately, it's also being shipped all over the world and its full of carcinogens and other poisons, byproducts of China's GDP, which keeps on growing at the expense of the environment. Whenever I eat shrimp or fish here I have to block out of my mind where it came from - filthy water full of chemicals, pesticides and other goodies that keep the economy on a tear. The short-sightedness here is simply mind boggling: there's only so much poison you can keep pouring into the water before life is virtually unsustainable. Just one more train-wreck to worry about as China continues its campaign against nature.

My one hope is an emerging awareness of the benefits of "green" among Chinese young people - I think they are beginning to get it. I sure hope so, because they don't have a lot of time, and I fear that a lot of the damage done is irreversible.

A reprehensible take on a gruesome murder

1. “After luring Wan to an Auckland hotel, the three contacted his mother in China demanding a ransom… But they strangled and knifed him the same night.”
   Then they go on with:
   “Some Chinese students and educators believe the “shocking” case raises concern over the situations Chinese students studying abroad have to confront… some Chinese students who go abroad face psychological pressure… parents should think twice before deciding to send their children abroad.”

   Huh? Seriously, huh?

   He was murdered by his own countrymen (something that has not come as a surprise to any of the Chinese people I’ve discussed this with). It had nothing whatsoever to do with any other country, or the fact that the kid was abroad for ’study’.

   He was murdered by his own countrymen.

   The reason for this article, as with many articles that China Daily publish, is simply to remind people in China, that only China is a good place, and that sensible Chinese shouldn’t desire too strongly to go abroad.

   China Daily earns this month’s FUCKTARD Award for Services to Reprehensibility.

   Incidentally, I know quite a lot about New Zealand, and even lived there for a time. There are a lot of ‘Chinese’ living there, and they fall into two groups:
   1. Those who left China before the Communist rebels overthrew the legal government. They are as ‘Kiwi’ as anyone else living in the country, and would be offended at the suggestion that they are somehow ‘Chinese’.
   2. Those who have arrived in the last 10-15 years. These arrogant little upstarts are the ones that cause almost all of the trouble that relates to asians living in New Zealand. They are rich, however, with good political connections back home in many cases, which means that they are still received warmly by the majority of most NZ schools and businesses.

The controversial EU treaty rules

ARTICLE 19:

1. Collective expulsions are prohibited.

2. No one may be removed, expelled or extradited to a State where there is a serious risk that he or she would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

ARTICLE 4:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

ARTICLE 7:

Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications.

ARTICLE 15:

1. Everyone has the right to engage in work and to pursue a freely chosen or accepted occupation.

2. Every citizen of the Union has the freedom to seek employment, to work, exercise the right of establishment and provide services in any Member State.

3. Nationals of third countries authorised to work in the territories of the Member States are entitled to working conditions equivalent to those of citizens of the Union.

ARTICLE 16:

The freedom to conduct a business in accordance with Community law and national laws and practices is recognised.

ARTICLE 18:

The right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and the New York Protocol of 31 January 1967 relating to the status of refugees and in accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community.

ARTICLE 45:

1. Every citizen of the Union has the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.

2. Freedom of movement and residence may be granted, in accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community, nationals of third countries legally resident in the territory of a Member State.

ARTICLE 47:

1. Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article.

2. Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and represented.

FOREIGN Secretary David Miliband signed the hated EU treaty - hours before Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived in Lisbon.

Due to the PM's delayed arrival, Mr Miliband was the only foreign minister to attend the televised ceremony alone, amid a stream of prime ministers and presidents from the other 26 EU states.

Mr Brown also later signed the document in a low key ceremony.

The news will be a blow to the country's voters - poll after poll shows the British people against it.

Only Mr Miliband went to the podium alone to inscribe his name on Britain’s behalf.

He also took part in the official “family photo” following the signing of the Treaty without Mr Brown.

The PM's absence is expected to prompt speculation that he did not want to be pictured signing the book at the official ceremony.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: “What will other EU leaders think of a Prime Minister who dithers for a week about whether he dares be photographed putting pen to paper?

“Does he think that other European prime ministers don’t have diary commitments too? Instead of leadership we have indecision, gutlessness and broken election promises. Britain deserves better.”

The developments come despite an eleventh-hour bombshell that it means surrendering control of Britain’s immigration policy.

Late ... PM signs Treaty

The warning was issued to the PM last night as he prepared to wave the white flag over our right to make our own laws.

It emerged tens of thousands of foreigners facing the boot from the UK will be winners. They will get new rights to overturn decisions by Britain’s Immigration and Asylum Tribunal.

It means failed asylum seekers will be free to take their cases to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg — giving the final say to unelected EU judges.

And it is all thanks to a treaty critics warn is practically the SAME as the ill-fated EU Constitution, which bit the dust two years ago after the French and Dutch rejected it in referendums.

Amazingly, Mr Brown — who vetoed a referendum on the treaty here claiming it was different — now admits it IS a “semi-constitution”. Interviewed in The Times today, he vows to get tough with EU leaders — while accepting the treaty mirrors parts of the Constitution.

The PM says: “What I’m going to say to Europe is stop looking inwards, stop looking at constitutions or semi-constitutions or institutions for a long time ahead — and for the foreseeable future concentrate on the big issues ahead of us.”

Last night Neil O’Brien, whose Open Europe organisation has scoured the treaty’s small print, declared: “By signing us up to the rejected Constitution, Gordon Brown is giving EU courts the right to hear asylum cases.

“This could mean that decisions made by UK courts to deport failed asylum seekers will be overturned by Brussels.”

The signing today surrendered more than SIXTY of the UK’s prized vetoes on EU decisions — forever.

The treaty puts in place a powerful permanent EU president and foreign minister. Powers will be handed to unelected bureaucrats and judges in Brussels.

Tory leader David Cameron blasted Mr Brown’s “betrayal” of Britain. He said: “He doesn’t even have the guts to put it to the British people.”

This morning the PM was grilled by MPs in Westminster — meaning he would arrive late for the historic signing ceremony.

After finally arriving in Lisbon he was set to put pen to paper hours after his EU counterparts — leaving many of them furious.

Article 21 of the treaty declares it will be illegal for any EU state to discriminate on “any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion.”

It bars any member country from “any discrimination on grounds of nationality”.

Other clauses which hand immigrants more powers are included in Articles 4, 19, 7, 15, 16, 18, 45 and 47. The UK Government has confessed in the past it has great concerns about the measures.

Former EU minister Geoff Hoon — now chief whip — admitted they should NOT have been applied to the UK.

He said last November: “There is clearly a risk that adding what is in effect an avenue of appeal at a very early stage in the process might be an opportunity of further complicating our existing asylum and immigration processes.”

There are currently 167,000 appeals against deportation heard by the Immigration Tribunal each year.

Hundreds more are then taken to the Court of Appeal until they are exhausted — costing taxpayers a fortune. The new powers handed to migrants threaten to clog up the European Court of Justice.

It takes an average of two years to deal with a case — even though the EU court’s role SHOULD be to focus on helping industry, not sorting out asylum cases.

The changes will also cost UK taxpayers a fortune as failed asylum seekers contest their cases while remaining on full benefits. Government figures show the average bill for supporting a refugee is £129 a week.

A two-year court battle would see an applicant costing the taxpayer £13,500 in handouts and around £3,500 in legal aid costs. With more than 150,000 appeals in Britain each year, the bill could run into tens of millions — as a direct result of the EU treaty.

The pact ALSO threatens to destroy Europe’s ability to compete against the tiger economies of India and China — thanks to the French.

Measures outlawing EU countries from propping up their own companies with unfair cash handouts will be diluted. The treaty will effectively destroy competition — and allow failing firms and industries to snuff out any hopes of the EU getting its economy into shape.

Every other EU leader has admitted the treaty is virtually identical to the doomed Constitution. Last night Labour MPs on the powerful Commons Foreign Affairs Committee warned Foreign Secretary David Miliband not to treat voters as fools.

Andrew MacKinlay said of the Constitution: “A majority of the public feel it and the treaty are one and the same.”

Mr Brown faces a bitter Commons revolt in January when he tries to force the treaty through Parliament.

And yet, the president’s chief spokesperson doesn’t know anything about it.

Still looking for that last-minute Christmas gift for White House press secretary Dana Perino? May we recommend a gift certificate for the forthcoming book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by our colleague Michael Dobbs, “One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War,” due out next summer?

Appearing on National Public Radio’s light-hearted quiz show “Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me,” which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis — and she didn’t know what it was.

“I was panicked a bit because I really don’t know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

So she consulted her best source. “I came home and I asked my husband,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Wasn’t that like the Bay of Pigs thing?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’ “

The “Bay of Pigs thing”? She’s “pretty sure” the crisis “had to do with Cuba and missiles”? Seriously?

As it happens, I’d argue that this is more than just a minor embarrassment for a senior White House official. The significance of the Cuban Missile Crisis is probably greater now than at any point in the post-Cold War era.

Indeed, the event has been a fairly significant part of the public discourse lately, in part because so many of us wonder what might have happened if a reckless and irresponsible president — say, George W. Bush — had been in office at the time. Just a couple of months ago, Hardball host Chris Matthews touched on this at an event in DC:

Matthews left the throng of Washington A-listers with a parting shot at Cheney: “God help us if we had Cheney during the Cuban missile crisis. We’d all be under a parking lot.”

On a related note, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote an analysis of Bush’s foreign-policy worldview that incorporated a similar assessment.

This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative: Be silent; I see it, if you don’t. However, both Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War, explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin’s attempt to dominate Europe. And in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, President Kennedy, himself a hero of the Second World War, rejected the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a preventive strike against the Soviet Union in Cuba. (emphasis added)

Who’s willing to argue that Bush and Cheney would reject similar advice about a pre-emptive war now?

Indeed, the contemporary utility of the Cuban Missile Crisis is fairly broad (at least in condemning the current president). As the emergency was unfolding, Kennedy dispatched his Secretary of State to Paris to meet with DeGaulle to discuss the crisis. Before even being shown photographic evidence of Soviet missiles approaching Cuba, DeGaulle waved the pictures off and said, “No, the word of the president of the United States is good enough for me.”

Today, is there a country on the planet that would accept the president’s word on faith when it comes to an international security crisis?

By most standards, JFK was a bit of a “hawk” when it came to foreign policy, but when faced with his greatest challenge, he achieved his greatest triumph by bucking the brass, avoiding a catastrophe, and allowing cooler heads to prevail.

Perino might want to read up on the story — it has a surprising salience 45 years later.

NY Mayor Urged Promote Rights in China

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Bloomberg, who is visiting China this week, is obligated to express concern about media freedoms because of his background as founder of the global financial news service that bears his name.

''Bloomberg should explain to the Chinese government how important media freedom is to China's social, economic and political development,'' the group said in a statement Saturday. Bloomberg is scheduled to attend a series of meetings with government officials and business leaders in Beijing and Shanghai.

Separately, London-based Amnesty International said the IOC must push Beijing organizers at its Executive Board meeting this week in Switzerland for progress on reducing use of the death penalty and detentions of citizens without trial, allowing greater freedom of expression, and ending harassment of human rights activists.

While reforms are primarily the government's responsibility, the IOC ''can still make a significant contribution by using its influence to bring about positive change in line with the Olympics Charter,'' the group said.

China is considered the leading jailer of journalists, with at least 29 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group. Most independent reporting and criticism of the ruling Communist Party is blocked, and monitors erase critical commentary on the Internet and frequently jail cyber-dissidents. Scores of Web sites carrying news and opinion are blocked within the country.

Authorities have relaxed rules for foreign media ahead of the Aug. 15 opening of the Olympic Games, promising unrestricted access, visa exemptions, tax waivers for equipment and other benefits. However, harassment and occasional detentions continue, according to monitoring groups and foreign journalists.

China executes more people for crimes each year than all other nations combined and regularly sentences petty criminals and government critics to two or more years in prison camps without trial. Activists highlighting corruption and the denial of civil, religious, medical and labour rights are frequently threatened and detained.

Beijing

 IBDP Language A English Teacher – AUG 08

This is a secondary university preparatory international school in Beijing approved by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission to enrol local and overseas students aged 11 to 19. They are authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) to offer students aged 16 to 19 the Diploma Programme (IBDP), which is recognized as a qualification for university entrance. We are now implementing IB Middle Years Programme (IBMYP) in the junior section.
There are two campuses within easy reach of central Beijing and the major Ring Road network. The southern campus is about 10 minutes walk to the northern one. 440 students and 100 staff from over 40 countries are now on both campuses. 85% students are international students; most of them are coming from embassies and foreign companies.

 
Salary and Package
• The salary is modest but better than at Chinese state schools. A single applicant can save fairly comfortably.
• There is an adequate housing allowance and some help with finding accommodation.
• There are the usual expat benefits

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.

The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.

During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.

Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.

He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.

Jones replied: “That is United States law.”

He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.

Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.

In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a “sinister trap” and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain.

Legal sources said that under traditional American justice, rendition meant capturing wanted people abroad and bringing them to the United States. The term “extraordinary rendition” was coined in the 1990s for the kidnapping of terror suspects from one foreign country to another for interrogation.

There was concern this weekend from Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP, who said: “The very idea of kidnapping is repugnant to us and we must handle these cases with extreme caution and a thorough understanding of the implications in American law.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation.”

The US Justice Department declined to comment.