'Lincoln,' 'Les Miz' look for big Oscar haul

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Crusaders for good, old-fashioned Western democracy look to be the key figures vying for this year's Academy Awards.

Best-picture favorites for Thursday morning's Oscar nominations include "Lincoln," Steven Spielberg's portrait of the great emancipator who abolished slavery and reunified the United States; "Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow's chronicle of the hunt for U.S. public enemy No. 1, Osama bin Laden; and "Les Miserables," Tom Hooper's musical epic set against an uprising of freedom fighters in 19th century France.

Among other prospects are "Argo," Ben Affleck's thriller about a CIA scheme to save Americans from Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis; "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's bloody revenge saga about a former slave hunting white oppressors just before the Civil War; and "Life of Pi," Ang Lee's story of a free-thinking Indian youth cast adrift on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger while traveling to a new life in North America.

This year's nominations come earlier than usual in Hollywood's long awards season, leaving the awards picture a bit murkier. By the time Oscar nominations come out most years, the Golden Globes already have given their trophies, helping to sort out prospective front-runners for show business' biggest night.

The nominations this time precede the Golden Globes ceremony, which follows on Sunday.

The Globes and other honors presented in late January and February by directors, actors, writers and producers guilds will clear up the best-picture race for the Oscars. Right now, "Lincoln," ''Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" appear the most likely contenders for the top prize.

All three films come from directors who delivered best-picture winners in the past: Spielberg with 1993's "Schindler's List," Bigelow with 2009's "The Hurt Locker" and Hooper with 2010's "The King's Speech." Bigelow also won the directing Oscar, the first woman ever to earn that honor, Hooper earned the same prize a year later, and Spielberg has received the directing trophy twice, for "Schindler's List" and 1998's "Saving Private Ryan."

"Lincoln" also has good chances on acting nominations for three past winners: two-time Oscar recipients Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, and supporting actor recipient Tommy Lee Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

"Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain, a supporting-actress nominee last season for "The Help," is in the running for a best-actress slot this time as a CIA operative relentlessly pursuing bin Laden.

Two past Oscar ceremony hosts have strong shots at nominations for "Les Miserables": Hugh Jackman for best actor as Victor Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway for supporting actress as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution.

Other acting possibilities include Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro for the oddball romance "Silver Linings Playbook; Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz for "Django Unchained"; Affleck and Alan Arkin for "Argo"; John Hawkes and Helen Hunt for the sex-surrogate story "The Sessions"; Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams for the 1950s cult tale "The Master"; Bill Murray for the Franklin Roosevelt comic drama "Hyde Park on Hudson"; Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren for the filmmaking chronicle "Hitchcock"; Marion Cotillard for the French-language drama "Rust and Bone"; and Denzel Washington for the airliner-crash saga "Flight."

Winners for the 85th Oscars will be announced Feb. 24 at a ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.

"Family Guy" creator and vocal star Seth MacFarlane — a versatile performer whose work includes directing and voicing for the title character of last summer's hit "Ted" and a Frank Sinatra-style album of standards — is the Oscar host.

Thursday's nominees will be announced at 8:40 a.m. EST by "The Amazing Spider-Man" star Emma Stone and MacFarlane, the first time that an Oscar show host has joined in the preliminary announcement since 1972, when Charlton Heston participated on nominations day.

___

Online:

http://www.oscars.org

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Tunisian Style Baked Cauliflower Frittata — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

In the authentic version of this frittata there is a lot more olive oil, as well as chopped hard-boiled eggs. This one is lighter and simpler. It is great for lunch or dinner and keeps well in the refrigerator.

1/2 medium head cauliflower (about 1 1/4 pounds), trimmed of leaves, bottom of the stem trimmed away

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

8 eggs

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1/2 cup finely chopped parsley

2 teaspoons ground caraway seeds

2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

1/2 teaspoon harissa dissolved in 1 teaspoon water, or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a 2-quart casserole, preferably earthenware or in a 9-inch cast iron skillet, and brush the bottom and sides of the dish with the oil.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Add the cauliflower and boil gently until very tender, about 15 minutes. If you prefer, you can cut up the cauliflower and steam it for 15 minutes. Using slotted spoons or tongs remove the cauliflower from the water (or from the steamer), transfer to a bowl of cold water and drain. Cut the florets from the stem and mash into little pieces with a fork. You should have about 3 cups.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic, stir together for about 30 seconds and remove from the heat.

4. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in the cauliflower, onion and garlic, parsley, ground caraway and Parmesan. Make sure the harissa is dissolved in the water if using, and stir in; otherwise stir in the cayenne. Scrape into the casserole dish.

5. Place in the oven and bake 40 minutes, or until set. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. In Tunisia these frittatas are served at room temperature, but you can also serve it hot.

Yield: Serves 6

Advance preparation: The frittata is delicious served the next day. Bring back to room temperature or heat slightly in a low oven before serving. The cooked cauliflower will keep for about 3 days in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving: 165 calories; 12 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 249 milligrams cholesterol; 5 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 139 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

Chinese Firm Buys an American Solar Technology Start-Up

Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press

The chief of MiaSolé, John Carrington, left, at the announcement of the company’s purchase by Hanergy Holding Group, for which Zhou Jiesan is an executive.

Just a few years ago, Silicon Valley investors were pouring money into solar technologies and talking about how they would bring the same kind of innovation to green energy that they had to the computer chip.

But few anticipated that prices for silicon, the main component of traditional solar panels, would plummet or that Chinese manufacturers, backed by enormous subsidies from their government, would increase solar production capacity by a factor of 17 in just four years.

The resulting plunge in solar panel prices wiped out the dream of a new Solar Valley. Despite making advances in the new technology, known as thin-film solar, the American companies just couldn’t compete.

The federal government’s imposition of steep tariffs last year on Chinese conventional panels helped, but the industry had waited so late to apply for the tariffs that balance sheets had already been crippled with accumulated losses and investors had lost interest.

Some thin-film companies went bankrupt, including Solyndra, which had received half a billion dollars in federal subsidies. Others, like Stion, licensed their technology or formed strategic partnerships with large corporations.

On Wednesday, the chief executive of MiaSolé, one of the most promising Silicon Valley solar start-ups, appeared in Beijing for the announcement that Hanergy Holding Group of China had completed the purchase of his company and its technology for a fraction of what investors had put in. Hanergy made its money building hydroelectric dams.

Hanergy’s purchase of the 100-employee MiaSolé, based in Santa Clara, Calif., follows its acquisition in September of the 400-employee thin-film solar unit of Q.Cells, an insolvent German solar company. The two deals have allowed Hanergy to acquire at low cost an array of patents developed for hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital investments.

“Going head to head against the Asian low-cost, mass-volume crystalline silicon manufacturers is not a wise strategy if you’re trying to produce an ultracheap module in the United States or in high-cost markets,” said Neil Z. Auerbach, managing partner of Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a SoloPower investor. “But if you’re adopting advanced technology, you have a niche strategy in which those incumbents do not have a competitive edge because they don’t really have a product that suits.”

The industry’s broad competitive challenges have prompted American investors to shun the sector. Last year, venture capital financing in the solar sector plummeted nearly 50 percent to $992 million in 103 deals from $1.9 billion in 108 deals in 2011, according to Mercom Capital Group, a clean-tech research and communications company.

Chinese regulators, too, have begun trying to deal with the overcapacity, discouraging their banks from making more large loans to the solar panel sector.

Li Hejun, the chairman of Hanergy, said at the news conference in Beijing that the company’s hydroelectric dams produce several hundred million dollars a year in free cash flow, so it can finance its own investments in solar, which already include six thin-film solar factories, plus three more under construction.

“Everyone knows about the overcapacity in solar energy industry in China, but for us industrial insiders, this overcapacity is but a relative one,” he said. “For those who have technology, the situation is the opposite.”

The thin-film technology championed by the Silicon Valley start-ups uses more exotic materials than conventional solar panels, which are made from crystalline silicon.

Most thin-film modules are slightly less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than conventional panels, but they are much lighter, which makes them easier to mount in locations that may not support the weight of conventional panels.

Supporters of thin-film technology contend that it has the potential for considerable further efficiency gains that may not be possible for conventional panels, which have been researched for decades. And some research has shown that thin-film can outperform conventional silicon-based panels at high temperatures, such as in deserts, where solar farms are often located.

The technology’s promise attracted the attention of the Obama administration, which provided clean-energy grants and loans to some of the companies, although not to MiaSolé.

Diane Cardwell reported from New York and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong. Patrick Zuo contributed research from Beijing.

Read More..

Q. and A. With Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his office on Saturday.

WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration weighs how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after 2014, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal cautioned that the United States still needs to keep forces there to help stabilize the country and urged a continued effort to advise the Afghan military that appears to be more extensive than the White House has in mind.

“If we allow Afghanistan to become completely unstable, Pakistan’s stability is really difficult,” the former American commander in Afghanistan said in a recent interview. “So I think there’s a geostrategic argument for it.”

General McChrystal offered his analysis of Afghanistan in the interview, which coincided with the release of his book “My Share of the Task: A Memoir,” published by Portfolio/Penguin.

The general, who is retired from the Army, was fired by President Obama from his post in 2010 after an article in Rolling Stone quoted him and his staff as making dismissive comments about the White House.

His comments come as Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is scheduled to begin a series of high-level meetings this week in Washington.

Regarding Afghanistan, some analysts have urged that the United States rely mainly on small numbers of commandos to carry out raids against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

But General McChrystal asserted that such “counterterrorism” operations work best when they are coupled with “counterinsurgency” efforts to build up the ability of the host nation to govern and bolster the capability of its forces.

He also noted that to carry out commando raids, the American military needs bases, an intelligence network and arrangements for medical evacuation. “But if you don’t have the support of the Afghan people, if you are just in there doing what you want to do on their terrain, there’s no reason for them to be supportive of this,” he said. “We’d be fighting our own war on their territory, and they’re just not that interested in that.”

On troop numbers, General McChrystal declined to say how many troops the United States might need to keep in Afghanistan after 2014. (The White House is considering retaining a force of 3,000 to 9,000 troops, which would be complemented by a much smaller number of troops from other NATO nations).

General McChrystal agreed that the American force, currently 66,000 troops, should be substantially reduced. But he cautioned advised against retaining too small a force.

“We had 7,500 in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 when I was first stationed there,” he said. “And 7,500 wouldn’t do much.”

An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy would allied nations advise. Under the largest of the troop options under consideration by the White House, it is generally expected that NATO would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters.

It is unlikely that NATO officers will advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield under this option as that would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster.

But General McChrystal suggested that a more extensive advisery effort was needed to make the Afghan military more effective. “My personal tendency would be to get advisers a little bit lower than corps; I’d want them down to battalion level,” he said.

General McChrystal said he voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 but declined to say whom he had voted for in 2012. He would not discuss the Rolling Stone article in detail but insisted that he had intended no disrespect for the president or his aides.

After the article was published, General McChrystal said that he arrived at his fateful meeting with Mr. Obama on June 23, 2010, with his resignation in hand. The decision whether to accept it was up to the president.

Nick Hubbard contributed research.

Read More..

Samsung’s big push for 2013: content, corporates

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics, the global leader in consumer smartphones, is planning two major thrusts in 2013: bulking up mobile content and moving faster into the corporate market dominated by Research in Motion.

The South Korean electronics company is investing in devices that enterprise users like corporations will endorse, with a higher level of security and reliability than general users need. In doing so, Samsung is capitalizing on doubts about the longevity of the BlackBerry as its Canadian maker struggles to revive growth.

Samsung’s corporate market ambitions have advanced as the Galaxy SIII, its popular flagship smartphone, won the requisite security certifications from companies, said Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA.

As RIM prepares to launch its next-generation BlackBerry 10 this quarter, the company’s future remains shaky. Corporate technology officers have begun to explore other smartphones, such as those by Apple Inc or Samsung.

“The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open. The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions,” Packingham said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “They want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems. Samsung is investing in that area.”

“It’s been a focus for a long time but the products have evolved now that we can really take advantage of that,” he added. “We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market. What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3.”

Samsung in 2012 overtook Apple as the world’s largest maker of smartphones, with a vastly larger selection of cellphones that attacked different price points and proved popular in emerging markets.

German business software maker SAP provides employees with Samsung’s Galaxy S III, the larger Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab, SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann said in an interview.

“The one clear trend in enterprise is the shift away from one device to multiple devices,” said Bussman, who makes 10 devices available to SAP employees for official use. The list includes Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Nokia Lumia and RIM’s Blackberry.

“Because of the fragmentation of the Android software, we decided to go with just one Android company and we went with Samsung,” he added.

Now, the Korean hardware specialist is beefing up its software – an area in which it has lagged arch-enemy Apple, which revolutionized the mobile phone from 2007 with its content-rich, developer-led iPhone ecosystem.

Packingham sees an area ripe for innovation – combining the mobile phone with Samsung’s strength, the TV, which has barely evolved in the past decade.

Still, the U.S.-based executive remained cagey about Samsung’s plans for content and enterprise.

“You are going to see from content services, we’ll start to integrate what’s happening on the big screen, what’s happening on the tablet,” he said.

“We know now that people like to explore content that they are watching on TV while they have a tablet in their lap, and that’s going to be a big theme for this year.”

(Editing by Richard Chang)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Samsung’s big push for 2013: content, corporates
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/samsungs-big-push-for-2013-content-corporates/
Link To Post : Samsung’s big push for 2013: content, corporates
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

'Lincoln' leads race for British Academy Awards

LONDON (AP) — Historical biopic "Lincoln" leads the race for the British Academy Film Awards, with 10 nominations at the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars, including best picture.

Epic musical "Les Miserables" and boy-meets-tiger saga "Life of Pi" received nine nominations each, while James Bond adventure "Skyfall" got eight — rare awards recognition for an action movie — and Iran hostage thriller "Argo" took seven.

Lincoln's nods, announced Wednesday, include Daniel Day-Lewis for leading actor, Sally Field for supporting actress and Tommy Lee Jones for supporting actor. But there was nothing for the film's director, Steven Spielberg.

The best picture nominees are "Lincoln," ''Les Miserables," ''Life of Pi," ''Argo" and Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty."

"Les Miserables" is also a contender in the separate category of best British film, alongside "Anna Karenina," ''The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," ''Seven Psychopaths" and "Skyfall."

Ben Affleck is nominated both as director of "Argo" and as its leading actor. The other male acting contenders are Day-Lewis, Bradley Cooper for "The Silver Linings Playbook," Hugh Jackman for "Les Miserables" and Joaquin Phoenix for "The Master."

"Skyfall" star Daniel Craig was snubbed, but the film received supporting acting nominations for Judi Dench's spy chief and Javier Bardem's scene-stealing baddie.

The best-actress shortlist includes 85-year-old "Amour" star Emmanuelle Riva — who was nominated for the same prize 52 years ago for "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" — Helen Mirren for "Hitchcock," Jennifer Lawrence for "Silver Linings Playbook," Jessica Chastain for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Marion Cotillard for "Rust and Bone."

The heavyweight best-director list includes Affleck, Michael Haneke for Cannes Film Festival prize-winner "Amour," Quentin Tarantino for "Django Unchained," Ang Lee for "Life of Pi" and Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty."

Poignant old-age portrait "Amour" is up for best foreign-language film, along with Norway's "Headhunters," Denmark's "The Hunt" and French films "Rust and Bone" and "Untouchable."

In recent years, the awards, known as BAFTAs, have helped underdog films including "Slumdog Millionaire," ''The King's Speech" and "The Artist" gain momentum for Oscars success.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Feb. 10, two weeks before the Hollywood awards.

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Cauliflower and Tuna Salad — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I have added tuna to a classic Italian antipasto of cauliflower and capers dressed with vinegar and olive oil. For the best results give the cauliflower lots of time to marinate.

1 large or 2 small or medium cauliflowers, broken into small florets

1 5-ounce can water-packed light (not albacore) tuna, drained

1 plump garlic clove, minced or pureéd

1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

3 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons sherry vinegar or champagne vinegar

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Place the cauliflower in a steaming basket over 1 inch of boiling water, cover and steam 1 minute. Lift the lid for 15 seconds, then cover again and steam for 5 to 8 minutes, until tender. Refresh with cold water, then drain on paper towels.

2. In a large bowl, break up the tuna fish and add the cauliflower.

3. In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix together the garlic, parsley, capers, lemon juice, vinegar, and olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper. Add the cauliflower and toss together. Marinate, stirring from time to time, for 30 minutes if possible before serving. Serve warm, cold, or at room temperature.

Yield: Serves 6 as a starter or side dish

Advance preparation: You can make this up to a day ahead, but omit the parsley until shortly before serving so that it doesn’t fade. It keeps well in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Nutritional information per serving: 188 calories; 15 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 10 grams monounsaturated fat; 10 milligrams cholesterol; 8 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 261 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

A Bold Dissenter at the Fed, Hoping His Doubts Are Wrong

RICHMOND, Va. — Jeffrey M. Lacker, the Federal Reserve’s most persistent internal critic, does not much resemble a firebrand. He is personally cheerful, professionally inclined to see both sides of an issue and quick to acknowledge he may not be right. He says he would rather be wrong.

Steve Ruark for The New York Times

Jeffrey M. Lacker questions the Fed's tack.

But for the last several years, Mr. Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, has warned repeatedly that the central bank’s extraordinary efforts to stimulate growth are ineffective and inappropriate and, worst of all, that the Fed is undermining its hard-won ability to control inflation.

Last year, Mr. Lacker cast the sole dissenting vote at each of the eight meetings of the Fed’s policy-making committee, only the third time in history a Fed official dissented so regularly.

“We’re at the limits of our understanding of how monetary policy affects the economy,” Mr. Lacker said in a recent interview in his office atop the bank’s skyscraper here. “Sometimes when you test the limits you find out where the limits are by breaking through and going too far.”

As the Fed enters the sixth year of its campaign to revitalize the economy, the debate between the Fed’s majority and Mr. Lacker — whose views are shared by others inside the central bank, as well as some outside observers — highlights the extent to which the Fed is operating in uncharted territory, making choices that have few precedents, unclear benefits and uncertain consequences.

The economy continues to muddle along, shadowed by the threat of another government breakdown, and the crisis of high unemployment is only slowly receding. But in trying to address those problems by suppressing interest rates, the Fed risks the unleashing of speculation and inflation.

It is basically a matter of disposition: is it better to risk doing too much, or not enough?

Mr. Lacker, 57, often uses the word “humility” in describing his views. He means that the Fed should recognize that its power to stimulate the economy is limited, both for technical reasons and because it should not encroach on the domain of elected officials by picking winners and losers.

As he sees it, the Fed’s current effort to reduce unemployment by purchasing mortgage-backed securities crossed both lines. He sees little evidence that it will help to create jobs. And he says that buying mortgage bonds is a form of fiscal policy, because it lowers interest rates for a particular kind of borrower.

But Mr. Lacker is at pains to emphasize that his disagreement with the other 11 members of the Federal Open Market Committee, who supported the purchases, is not about the need for help.

“It’s very unfair to think of me as not caring about the unemployed,” he said. “It just seems to me that there are real impediments, that just throwing money at the economy is unlikely to solve the problems that are keeping a 55-year-old furniture worker from finding a good competitive job.”

That sense of caution is deeply frustrating to proponents of the Fed’s recent efforts. The economists Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer wrote in a paper published last month that such pessimism about the power of monetary policy is “the most dangerous idea in Federal Reserve history.”

“The view that hubris can cause central bankers to do great harm clearly has an important element of truth,” wrote the Romers, both professors at the University of California, Berkeley. “But the hundred years of Federal Reserve history show that humility can also cause large harms.”

It also makes an interesting contrast with Mr. Lacker’s personality. His favorite escape is driving a Porsche Boxster racecar; a model sits on a shelf at his office. He jokes that the track is the only place that people don’t ask him about interest rates — although, he adds, they do care about fuel prices.

And at the Fed, an institution that likes consensus, dissenting also requires a certain amount of boldness. Mr. Lacker has now said no at 13 of the 24 regular policy meetings he has attended as a voting member, one-third of all dissents since Ben S. Bernanke became the Fed’s chairman in 2006. He voted in 2006, 2009 and 2012 as part of the regular rotation of reserve bank presidents.

Even some who sympathize with his concerns doubt the efficacy of such public stands.

Read More..

Faceoff in Chinese City Over Censorship of Newspaper

Jonah M. Kessel for The New York Times

A free speech advocate outside of Southern Weekend newspaper in Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday.

GUANGZHOU, China – Protests over censorship at one of China’s most liberal newspapers descended into ideological confrontation on Tuesday, pitting advocates of free speech against supporters of Communist Party control who wielded red flags and portraits of Mao Zedong.

The face-off between liberals and leftists at the headquarters of a newspaper company in southern China came after disgruntled editors and reporters at Southern Weekend last week decried what they alleged was crude meddling by the head of party propaganda in Guangdong Province, which has long had a reputation as a bastion of a relatively free press.

Negotiations between journalists and officials over the dispute are still at a standoff as the newspaper’s next publication date on Thursday looms, said Chen Min, a former senior writer for the paper.

Senior Chinese officials have so far not commented in public on the censorship dispute at the newspaper, which has tested how far the recently appointed Communist Party leader Xi Jinping will extend his vows of economic reform into a degree of political relaxation. But self-proclaimed defenders of communist orthodoxy who turned up at the newspaper headquarters said they were there to make the party’s case.

“We support the Communist Party, shut down the traitor newspaper,” said one of the cardboard signs held up by one of ten or so protesters who came to defend the government.

“Southern Weekend is having an American dream,” said another of the signs. “We don’t want the American dream, we want the Chinese dream.”

Some of the group held up portraits of Mao Zedong, the late revolutionary leader who remains a symbol of communist zeal, while others waved the red flags of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. Most of the party supporters refused to give their names. They said they came on their own initiative, and not at the behest of officials.

The dueling protests outside the newspaper’s headquarters in this provincial capital reflected the political passions and tensions churned up by the quarrel over censorship, which has erupted while Mr. Xi is trying to win public favor and consolidate his authority.

Hundreds of bystanders watched and took photos on smart phones as the leftists shouted at the 20 or more protesters who had gathered to denounce censorship, and shoving matches broke out between the demonstrators.

At one point, leftists were showered with five-jiao notes of the Chinese yuan currency, colloquially called “five Mao” notes. The “five Mao party” has become a popular term for disparaging pro-party leftists, who are alleged by critics to be willing to take five jiao in payment for each pro-party message they send onto the Internet.

“It’s the only newspaper in China that’s willing to tell the truth,” said Liang Taiping, 28, a poet from Changsha in southern China, who said he took the train to Guangzhou to show his support for Southern Weekend, which is widely read nationwide.

“What’s the point of living while you can’t even speak freely?” he said.

About 70 police officers and security guards stood nearby. They did not try to break up the protests, but officers recorded them with video cameras and occasionally stepped in to stop shoving and fisticuffs. Later, the rival protesters broke into separate camps concentrated on different sides of the gate to the newspaper headquarters.

The protesting journalists at Southern Weekend have called for the dismissal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong Province.

They blame Mr. Tuo, a former journalist, for making a drastic change in a New Year’s editorial that originally called for greater respect for constitutional rights. The revised editorial instead lauded Communist Party’s policies.

Chen Min, a prominent former opinion writer for Southern Weekend who is better known by his pen name, Xiao Shu, said staff members at the newspaper have been negotiating with officials over a possible solution to the standoff that might allow the next issue to appear on Thursday, as usual.

The protests at Southern Weekend broke out while Mr. Xi, the party’s general secretary appointed in November, has been sending mixed signals about his intentions. He has repeatedly said he supports faster and bolder reform, but on Saturday he gave a speech defending the party’s history and Mao Zedong’s standing in it.

China’s Central Propaganda Department, which administers the censorship apparatus, issued instructions telling news media that the dispute at Southern Weekend was “due to the meddling of hostile outside forces,” according to China Digital Times, a group based in Berkeley, Calif., that monitors media and censorship issues.

Both supporters and critics of Southern Weekend journalists have claimed that Mr. Xi would back their cause.

“I don’t believe that Xi is totally hypocritical when he talks about reform,” said Mr. Chen, who was forced out of the newspaper in 2011.

“The Southern Weekend journalists have said that they accept party control, but the question is what kind of control and how far should it go unchallenged,” Mr. Chen added.

Jonah Kessel reported from Guangzhou, China, and Chris Buckley reported from Hong Kong. Mia Li contributed reporting from Guangzhou and Patrick Zou contributed from Beijing.

Read More..

181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like “social media freak” and “social media wonk” and “social media authority.”

RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends’s Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage

B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 “social media stars” and 79 “social media ninjas” on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn’t just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like “social media warrior.” (We’re tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using “guru” — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:

While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.

I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence.

Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 “mavens” (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: 181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/181354-people-on-twitter-think-theyre-experts-at-twitter/
Link To Post : 181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..