"Sinocism is the Presidential Daily Brief for China hands"- Evan Osnos, New Yorker Correspondent and National Book Award Winner

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• 广西男子蒙冤入狱九年患精神病 真凶自首后获释_新闻_腾讯网 –
• 多地工商介入iPad商标案 唯冠申请大规模查扣 – 产经 – 21世纪网 –
• 雅芳涉贿被曝新证据 中国业绩仍不乐观 – 产经 – 21世纪网 –
• Tim Cook: Sales In China Were $13B Last Year | TechCrunch – If one takes China as an example, Cook said, Mac sales grew over 100 percent year-over-year. While objectively that may not seem like much, the entire market itself only grew 10 percent year-over-year. Not only that, but a few years China was “only” producing sales in the hundreds of millions for Apple, whereas last year, sales in China had grown to $13 billion. Cook said that this, among other things, is just further evidence of the explosive potential of Asian markets, specifically China.
• Business Insider: Yahoo’s New CEO Just Made His First Excellent Move, And Boy Are Shareholders Angry – Yahoo shareholders are angry at Thompson right now, and they're taking it out on the company's stock price.
  Good for Thompson for ignoring them.  It is to their benefit.
  (The big winners in the cash-rich split were never going to be Yahoo shareholders, anyway. It was going to be the PE firms orchestrating the deal. They were going to lend Alibaba the money, and then, if the rumors were true, convince Alibaba and Yahoo to use that money to buy companies from their own portfolios! )
• Yahoo’s Talks With Alibaba and Softbank Said to Have Collapsed – NYTimes.com – The talks to put together a tax-free transaction — known as a cash-rich split — ended on Monday after several days of negotiations in Hong Kong, said these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to one of these people, Alibaba’s chief financial officer and lead negotiator, Joe Tsai, indicated to his Yahoo counterpart, Timothy Morse, that the two sides might need to seek an alternative deal.

  It was unclear why the talks fell apart, although the pace of negotiations had been exceedingly slow. The two sides were still weeks away from being able to announce a deal, and Yahoo still needed to obtain formal assurances from the Internal Revenue Service that such a transaction would be tax-free.

• Remarks by President Obama and Vice President Xi of the People’s Republic of China Before Bilateral Meeting | The White House –
• Letter from China: China Catches Linfengkuang : The New Yorker –
• Romancing the Stone – Caixin Online – Rock appreciation, stemming from ancient creation myths dating back 2,000 years, continues to exert an influence on contemporary artists
• US-China Military Contacts, and a Lot More from CRS | Secrecy News – New and newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has not made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf)
• MIA Syrian ambassador moved to China | The Cable – The Syrian Ambassador to Washington Imad Moustapha has been missing in action for months. So where did he go? As it turns out, he moved to China!

  Moustapha, who is the subject of an FBI investigation for his alleged role in intimidating Syrian-American protesters and their families, is still listed as the Syria's ambassador to the United States on the Syrian embassy's website. But on his personal blog Feb. 8, he suddenly announced he and his family had moved to China, in a post entitled "A Fresh Start from the Middle Kingdom."

  "Now that we have moved to China, I plan to resume blogging about my life, family and friends in China, as well as writing on Chinese culture, history and art," he wrote in his first post since August 2011. "I have a feeling that this is going to be a wonderful journey of learning, exploring, and, most importantly, serendipitously discovering one of the most remarkable world civilizations. I hope you will enjoy my Chinese adventure."

• Intel Fight Over China Succession | Washington Free Beacon – Gertz, take with a grain of salt//

  According to U.S. national security officials, new indications of potentially destabilizing factionalism surfaced last week during the attempted defection to the United States of a senior Chinese police official.

  Wang Lijun, a deputy mayor in Chongqing, provided explosive details about senior Chinese leaders during an overnight stay and debriefing at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, in southern China.

  Wang’s intelligence supports the claims of U.S. officials who believe a faction of hardline nationalists within the party are seeking power. They oppose the more moderate, but still communist, faction headed by Hu Jintao that currently holds power in the Politburo, which runs China’s government.

• “Modern Day Slavery”: The Plight of North Korean Women in China « SINO-NK – the consequences of the one-child policy are also beginning to spread beyond the border, and the number of women trafficked into China from around the region and globe is on the rise. In her second piece for SinoNK.com, Mary Soo Anderson, Analyst for Refugee Issues, investigates the tragic situation involving North Korean women trafficked to China as sex workers and unwilling brides
• 蘋果日報 – 20120214 – 江澤民：給全國人民一個交代設專案組中共查薄熙來 – Apple Daily report on Bo investigation rumors, subscribers only
• 江派放料：九常委同意彻查薄熙来 « 多维博客 – HK's Apple Daily claims PBSC unanimously agrees 2 investigate Bo Xilai, "game over" 4 18th for Bo. lots of unsubstantiated rumors about chinese elite politics, esp in hong kong press. so consider the dwnews/apple daily just a rumor for now//

  据香港《苹果日报》引用最新江系的爆料指称，政治局9常委“一致同意”成立专案组对薄熙来立案调查，专案组成员包括中纪委书记贺国强、政法委书记周永康、还有中组部长李源潮。

  中共最高层常委相互火拼

  报导引述中纪委和中宣部知情者指，中共政治局9常委中8名常委“态度坚决”，只有1人勉强，原因是其家族在重庆和四川有庞大经济利益，恐调查薄惹火上身，但他最终也“无奈同意”。

• Proview Asks China Customs to Stop IPad Imports, Exports – Businessweek – A halt to exports from China would be “catastrophic” for Apple because it would mean a global halt to iPad sales, said Stan Abrams, an intellectual property lawyer and a law professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing. The threat of an export ban increases the pressure on Apple to settle the case, he said.

  “There’s got to be a settlement, and fairly soon,” Abrams said. “I can’t see how much more incentivized to settle Apple could be.”

• China: all you need is love – and cash | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com – Young urban Chinese are profligate at the best of times, often spending beyond their means in a way that challenges traditional notions of Asian frugality. But when it comes to Valentine’s Day – perhaps the mainland’s most popular Western holiday – they take extravagance to heights worthy of the most debt-laden Westerner.
• Man castrates self and jumps to death in Tsinghua University — Shanghai Daily – Witnesses said the man dressed in a feminine style and speculated that he did the castration to change sex.
• <b>UPDATE:</b> Iranian bombs himself | Bangkok Post: news – An Iranian man was severely injured when he threw a bomb at police that hit a tree and bounced back towards him and exploded in Bangkok on Tuesday afternoon, reports said.

  Two  bombs went off on Sukhumvit 71 road, injuring five people, including an Iranian man, the reports said.

  According to a television news report, an Iranian man carrying a black bag hurled the first bomb at a taxi after the driver refused to accept him as a passenger.

  When police arrived at the scene, the foreigner then threw a second bomb at them, but it hit a tree and bounced back towards him and exploded. He lost both of his legs in the blast, the report said.

• Empty Suit – By Yu Jie | Foreign Policy – Ten years ago, China's "crown prince," Hu Jintao, visited the United States and was treated with the highest respect. Back then the Chinese people, not to mention a large portion of Western political elites and China experts, held extremely high hopes for his tenure. The U.S. government wanted to win over Hu so it could press him to start political reform as soon as possible…
  Xi's family background appeases China's senior statesmen: He's "their man." Xi was in the army; the military and other powerful departments all support him. Xi's father was a liberal, so the groups with reformist aspirations preserve that fantasy in their hearts.
• 海外藏人意见分化 纵容极端做法自毁出路_多维新闻网 –
• Zizhi Tongjian – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – simplified Chinese: 资治通鉴; traditional Chinese: 資治通鑒; pinyin: Zīzhì Tōngjiàn; Wade–Giles: Tzu-chih T'ung-chien; literally "Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government")
• Meet China’s Folk Star First Lady-in-Waiting: Peng Liyuan – China Real Time Report – WSJ – There will be one notable omission from Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s delegation when he arrives in Washington on Monday: His wife, Peng Liyuan.

  Ms. Peng will not be accompanying Mr. Xi on his trip to the U.S. this week, according to people familiar with the plans. Many Chinese leaders choose to travel without their spouses, not least because they are unaccustomed to the public spotlight. But Mr. Xi’s rationale may be quite the reverse.

  The risk for him is that Ms. Peng, a hugely popular folk singer who has appeared regularly in front of audiences of hundreds of millions people during China’s annual Spring Festival television pageants, would outshine him.

• HK liquidity suffers from renminbi rival | beyondbrics | News and views on emerging markets from the Financial Times – FT.com – The cost of borrowing in Hong Kong will rise for homebuyers, businesses and mainland clients as credit becomes more scarce and provisions for bad loans tick higher, according to analysts.

  Banking sector teams at Macquarie and Barclays Capital agree the outlook for local banks is set to worsen this year but differ on the reasons why – with Barclays citing convergence with the Chinese monetary system through the offshore renminbi market and Macquarie blaming competition from Chinese banks.

• A High-Tech War on Leaks – NYTimes.com – It used to be that journalists had a sporting chance of protecting their sources. The best and sometimes only way to identify a leaker was to pressure the reporter or news organization that received the leak, but even subpoenas tended to be resisted. Today, advances in surveillance technology allow the government to keep a perpetual eye on those with security clearances, and give prosecutors the ability to punish officials for disclosing secrets without provoking a clash with the press.

  The changes have unsettled a decades-long accommodation between national security and press freedom, one in which the government did what it could to protect its secrets but exercised discretion in resorting to subpoenas and criminal charges when it failed. Even the administration of George W. Bush, no friend of leaks, more or less stuck to this script.

  “The government does not pursue every leak,” said Mark Corallo, who served as the Justice Department’s spokesman in Mr. Bush’s administration. “On balance, it is more important that the media have the ability to report. It’s important to our democracy.”

  That does not seem to be the view of the Obama administration, which has brought more prosecutions against current or former government officials for providing classified information to the media than every previous administration combined…
  Daniel Ellsberg, who provided the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, said he was deeply troubled by the charges.

  “The Kiriakou indictment for leaking” the identities of C.I.A. officers involved in a program that many people called torture, he said, “is particularly disgusting in the context of zero indictments for actually torturing, or for directing torture, or for writing spurious legal justifications for it.”

• Challenging 100 Years of Sleep Guidelines for Children – WSJ.com – Children ages 5 to 12 need between 10 and 11 hours of sleep a night, according to the National Sleep Foundation, the nonprofit sleep education group. Teenagers need between nine and 10 hours. But, about 45% of adolescents ages 11 to 17 get less than eight hours of sleep a night, according to the foundation's 2006 Sleep in America poll that surveyed 1,602 sixth through 12th graders and their parents or caregivers.
• Wang Lijun and the Tieling corruption case – China Media Project –
• Director Client Services/GM E-Commerce Consultancy & Digital Agency China at Web2Asia in Shanghai – Job | LinkedIn – Director Client Services/GM E-Commerce Consultancy & Digital Agency China at Web2Asia in Shanghai – Job | LinkedIn
• China’s Military Spending to Double by 2015 – Report – China Real Time Report – WSJ – China’s defense budget will double by 2015, making it more than the rest of the Asia Pacific region’s combined, according to a report from IHS Jane’s, a global think tank specializing in security issues.

  Beijing’s military spending will reach $238.2 billion in 2015, compared with $232.5 billion for rest of the region, according to the report. That would also be almost four times the expected defense budget of Japan, the next biggest in the region, in 2015, the report said.

  The new report was released as China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, arrived in Washington at the start of a four-day visit to the U.S

• China Digital Media Readings for February 14th | DigiCha –
• Advocates of Iran Sanctions Try to Sway Next Chinese Leader – NYTimes.com – In a letter addressed to Vice President Xi Jinping of China, a bipartisan group of former national security advisers urged him to support the sanctions efforts by the United States and the European Union, which seek to penalize Iran in part by severely limiting its ability to export oil.
• 实地采访深圳唯冠：厂址满目疮痍 债主纷纷讨债_业界_科技时代_新浪网 – $aapl a look at decrepit Proview facilities. bankrupt, Apple think can wait them out?
• 情人节销售数据：避孕用品增长四成 广东人最开放_原创_DoNews-IT门户-移动互联网新闻-电子商务新闻-游戏新闻-风险投资新闻-IT社交网络社区 – Data says: Sales of birth control products jump 40% on around valentine's day, cantonese are the most "open"
• 传湖南卫视金牌制片张一蓓出走 或加盟搜狐视频_原创_DoNews-IT门户-移动互联网新闻-电子商务新闻-游戏新闻-风险投资新闻-IT社交网络社区 – Has Sohu $sohu video hired away a top producer from Hunan TV? Sohu a serious competitor to youku $yoku and tudou $tudo
• 工商局约谈团宝网负责人 消费者退款仍未解决_互联网_DoNews-IT门户-移动互联网新闻-电子商务新闻-游戏新闻-风险投资新闻-IT社交网络社区 – Groupon.cn (not related to Groupon) is running out of money, can't pay its bills, customers complaining, administration of industry and commerce have called them in for a chat. Wont end well, nor will be first group buying implosion here, VC money dried up, ad buying way off, hitting all the digital media firms like sohu $sohu sina $sina baidu $bidu focus media $fmcn et al
• 淘宝医药馆本月底或正式重启 药监局签字放行_互联网_DoNews-IT门户-移动互联网新闻-电子商务新闻-游戏新闻-风险投资新闻-IT社交网络社区 – Taobao (Tianmao) launching an online pharmacy. Why does this seem like a bad idea?
• Xianghui (Roger) XIE – lawyer for Proview fighting Apple over iPad trademark
• 中科院“捐精门”主角涉贪百万受审 曾被妻举报包情妇-《财经网》 – 2011年7月9日，一则题为《中科院院士段振豪包养二奶，小三，小四，养私生女》的帖子在网上疯传。根据发帖的“发妻”描述，“准院士”段振豪包养多名情人，并有私生女，被老婆发现，竟谎称是“捐精”
• Caijing Investigates Illegal Organ Transplant Trading Network -Caijing – On April 28, 2011, with the “help” of five medical workers, 17-year-old Xiao Wei “sold” his kidney to a middle-aged Malaysian at a hospital in Chenzhou, Hunan Province.
  Xiao, one of many donors in China’s illegal organ transplant trading network, received 24,000 yuan in exchange for his kidney. The operation left a long and narrow scar on his right side. With the money he earned, Xiao bought electronic devices including a mobile phone and a tablet computer. His mother saw the scar after he returned to his hometown in Anhui province. Shocked and enraged, she called the police.
  Police investigated the incident and uncovered a transnational underground organ transplant trading network. Local authorities in Chenzhou have arrested a dozen suspects since the investigation began. The police found that the network, which is closely intertwined with online brokers, is made up of primarily young donors, overseas recipients, medical staff and hospital contractors. Together, they form an integrated chain which allows organs to be illegally harvested from donors and transplanted into recipients.
• Volcker Says More Market Liquidity Doesn’t Bring Public Benefit – Businessweek – Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said those attacking his namesake rule for reducing trading activity in capital markets ignore that higher volumes may actually lead to bigger risk-taking.

  “There should not be a presumption that evermore market liquidity brings a public benefit,” Volcker, 84, wrote in a letter submitted yesterday to regulators in defense of the rule curtailing banks’ bets on asset prices with their own money. “At some point, great liquidity, or the perception of it, may itself encourage more speculative trading.”

• Bikini-clad bodyguards are pretty tough stuff|Television|chinadaily.com.cn – While photos of scantily clad women are far from rare on the Internet, one series of 17 swimsuit clad seductresses on the tropical beaches of Sanya, Hainan province, has been making the rounds – and not merely as eye-candy.
  It's because audiences have loved watching these beauties – who hail from career backgrounds ranging from university student to professional acrobat – being punched, kicked and nearly drowned at a boot camp for professional body guards.
  The show is the latest segment of Jiаngsu Satellite TV's program Stand Out, a reality TV show that focuses on various sectors' recruitment.
• Map of how 25million tons of tsunami debris will hit California | Mail Online – Remnants of Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami are headed for the California shoreline – 25million tons of it.

  The 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck coastal towns near Sendai on March 11, 2011 triggered an avalanche of wreckage now drifting toward North America.

  The floating debris – which includes destroyed homes, wrecked fishing vessels, and even human remains – is shown in a computerized projection crafted by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who say by 2014 the wreckage will stretch from Alaska to Mexico.

• For China’s next leader, the past is sensitive – The Washington Post – That Xi’s father — who died in 2002 at age 88 — was once one of Mao’s trusted lieutenants and also one of his early victims is not a secret. Nor is the family’s suffering. Xi himself mentioned the trauma in a private August meeting in Beijing with Vice President Biden.

  But the details of the elder Xi’s tumultuous career — his rupture with Mao, his close ties to other purge targets who are still on the party’s blacklist, and his defiance of rigid orthodoxy — are increasingly sensitive topics in a one-party state where history is shaped to serve the present.

• Sino-Forest Truth May Never Be Known: Chairman – Bloomberg –
• China’s Xi Should Take a Lesson in U.S. Creativity: Junheng Li – Bloomberg – Chinese are beginning to understand what Americans have taken for granted: to move up the global food chain, creativity, social skills and risk-taking have to be cultivated. These “soft” skills can’t be taught by rote learning — and are in many cases quashed by the unrelenting focus on the narrowly defined perfection that the Chinese model champions.
  I have an unusual perspective of my own. Although the U.S. is my adopted home, I am a product of Chinese tiger parenting in its most authentic form, having grown up in Shanghai in the 1980s and 1990s. I have spent most of my career as a global equity growth investor researching publicly traded companies with defensible intellectual property, including those in China.
  Although I have found no shortage of extremely successful companies in China that have capitalized on inventions and designs from abroad, I have found few genuinely innovative business models.
• Why China’s Youth Find Western Culture Attractive | PBS NewsHour | Feb. 13, 2012 | PBS – JEFFREY BROWN: Next tonight, the debate in China over the growing influence of Western culture. It comes as China's vice president kicks off a trip to the United States this week, one designed in part to head off mounting tensions between the two countries.

  Kathleen McLaughlin is a Beijing correspondent for our partner GlobalPost. She has this report.

• Chinese Hackers Suspected in Long-Term Nortel Breach – WSJ.com – For nearly a decade, hackers enjoyed widespread access to the corporate computer network of Nortel Networks Ltd., a once-giant telecommunications firm now fallen on hard times.

  Using seven passwords stolen from top Nortel executives, including the chief executive, the hackers—who appeared to be working in China—penetrated Nortel's computers at least as far back as 2000 and over the years downloaded technical papers, research-and-development reports, business plans, employee emails and other documents, according to Brian Shields, a former 19-year Nortel veteran who led an internal investigation.

• 換屆之際說政德:部分官員政績觀扭曲催生造假現象 – 新華時政 – 新華網 –
• The myth of China as a harmless tiger – The Washington Post –
• Chinese officials favor reading biography books|Society|chinadaily.com.cn – Books frequently mentioned by officials as their favorites included The World Is Flat, Chasing Daylight and Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government.
• American Active on Internet Recounts Beating in China – NYTimes.com – The Chinese Communist Party has long felt threatened by overseas Web sites and social media outlets, but the recent detention of a California physicist who says he was beaten by Chinese security agents seeking the password for his Twitter account suggests how far the government will go in its battle against a freewheeling Internet.

  The man, Ge Xun, 53, a naturalized American citizen who moved to the United States from China in 1986

• Rein: Why Chinese Prefer Jobs in State Firms – CNBC – Despite what seemed like a dream job, last week Bo told me that he was leaving his company, after three years there. Why would he leave? Was he moving to another multinational firm? May be as a country head?

  No, instead Bo had decided to take the position of global head of marketing at a state-owned enterprise. The salary was not the main issue for his wanting to leave. Bo simply felt there was a glass ceiling at his firm for mainlanders that sapped his morale. After all, there were still several foreigners above him in the hierarchy.

  When one expatriate left, the firm relocated another to China and he and other mainlanders never moved up the ladder. At the state-owned enterprise, Bo’s job responsibilities would be expansive. He would be running the global marketing arm and would be dealing with the most senior executives.

• Bronte Capital: Dear Shareholder: the woman from the Propaganda Department will now provide you information – universal travel group//

  This new board member is probably very good at spin – which will be useful as the company tries to persuade the New York Stock Exchange to reinstate its listing.

  Here is her CV:

  Ms. Moling Shang has served during her career in several jobs in the communications division of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). From 1984 through 1996, Ms. Shang was the Chief of the Propaganda Department in the Information Bureau of the CPC's Central Committee. From 1996 to 1999, Ms. Shang served in numerous positions including Associate Director of News Agency for China Central Television and her previous role as the Chief ofPropaganda. Following her successful completion of her previous roles, Ms. Shang was appointed Deputy Chief of Propaganda in the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee where she was responsible for the Three Represents campaign from 1999 through 2002. From 2002 to 2010, she served as Deputy Chief of the Information Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Ms. Shang graduated from the Branch School of Peking University.

• 杨锦麟的微博 新浪微博-随时随地分享身边的新鲜事儿 – 丁亥年岁尾，平西王就封，召俊臣掌刑部。臣至，兴大狱，杀旧吏，剿豪强，禁丝竹，囚讼棍，恃学广而闻多，事王侯，人皆以为华，多褒贬，谤平西王。王忌其骄而祸己，欲弃之。臣怒，壬辰年初，夜遁入蜀，投西番之门而不入。事泄，上震怒！急召校尉无数，循车辙围而擒之，天下震动，仕人围而哂之。
• Engage China Letter To "Xi Jingping" – Seriously people…
• Wall Street Lobbying Group MIspells Xi Jinping’s name as Xi Jingping – WALL STREET-CHINA LETTER – “Engage China” a collation of 12 financial services trade associations wrote to Chinese Vice President Xi in advance of his visit: “In particular, the coalition is strongly of the view that continued reform and modernization of China’s financial sector is essential if China is to achieve its economic goals of maintaining high rates of growth and job creation, building a more services-based, consumer-driven economy, reducing poverty, and ensuring a more equitable distribution of opportunity and prosperity.”  http://bit.ly/wTAEIz
• Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool » Real Dan Lyons Web Site – In fact this is a new version of an old racket that used to be practiced in the tech space by guys who called themselves “independent analysts.” Their deal, back in the day, was this: “Pay seven figures a year to buy a corporate subscription to my newsletter and I’ll say nice things about your company, and when the press needs a quote, I’ll be there to puff you up. Or, don’t buy a subscription and I will bash you relentlessly.” Most big companies paid up and considered it a cost of doing business.
  Well, this is the model I was thinking about, but it turns out someone beat me to it — it’s called CrunchFund, and in the past few days we’ve seen the machine in action, and it is indeed a beautiful thing.
  This started when Nick Bilton of the New York Times posted an item criticizing Path, which had been caught up in a firestorm when it emerged that Path had been uploading entire address books from people’s iPhones. Bilton made the legitimate point that it’s now become a routine for Valley companies to do something sleazy, get caught, then quickly apologize and get hailed as heroes by the Valley for the quality of their apology. (It’s all about being able to fake the sincerity, as George Burns once said.) Bilton’s point was that Path didn’t just grab those address books by accident. They did it on purpose. It probably took weeks of programming. To just say, “Whoops! Sorry!” seems a bit disingenuous.
  Anyway — Path comes under fire, and guess who rides to the rescue? Michael Arrington, who runs CrunchFund, an investor in Path, launches a blistering critique of Bilton himself, comparing him to a pit bull who attacks a dog that is already lying on its back, defenseless, saying that Bilton’s column was “a safe way to do business, but not very noble.”..
  This is what now passes for “journalism” in Silicon Valley: hired guns and reformed click-whores who have found a way to grab some of the loot for themselves. This is perhaps not surprising. Silicon Valley once was home to scientists and engineers — people who wanted to build things. Then it became a casino. Now it is being turned into a silicon cesspool, an upside-down world filled with spammers, liars, flippers, privacy invaders, information stealers — and their grubby cadre of paid apologists and pygmy hangers-on.
• China Visit Starts With Dinner, Tibet Protests – WSJ.com – Vice President Xi, who flew into Andrews Air Force Base on Monday afternoon, began his visit with an informal dinner with retired senior officials, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Henry Paulson, the former Treasury secretary, according to people familiar with the plans.

  Outside the White House, Tibetan activists staged the first of several demonstrations they are planning during his visit to protest Chinese policies in Tibet, which they blame for a series of self-immolations by ethnic Tibetans over the past year.

  The contrasting welcomes for China's heir apparent illustrate the challenges facing both sides as they try to set ties on a new footing without being seen as giving ground on the many issues that divide them, especially trade, human rights and their respective military strategies in Asia…
  According to people familiar with the visit, another guest at Monday's dinner was Brent Scowcroft, a former White House national-security adviser who used to work for Kissinger Associates but now has his own consultancy, the Scowcroft Group.

• 传王立军被中央定调为有“政治问题”_多维新闻网 – 【多维新闻】中国官方2月9日发布关于王立军事件的新华社通稿后就一直没有正式消息。香港《明报》14日报道援引消息称，中央方面已经初步定调，闯入美国驻成都领事馆、目前正在接受调查的重庆副市长王立军有“极为严重的政治问题”。外界关于王立军6日进入美领馆后重庆市委书记薄熙来也曾到成都幕后指挥的报道，报道援引消息人士称，薄熙来当天并未去成都，警方是由市长黄奇帆带队，黄还曾进入领馆与王立军谈判劝他离开。
• 中将被证“双规” 刘源主抓胡习力挺_多维新闻网 – 这位消息人士透露，主抓该案的就是接任总后勤部政委整一年的刘源上将。可拿下这个谷俊山绝非易事，与谷俊山有密切交集甚至会涉及该案的很多都是衔至将星的高级将领，可谓牵一发而动全身。但刘源敢于向军队高层的腐败“举枪”是得到了胡锦涛和习近平的强力支持，他们并不像外界认为的那样，在十八大前过于求稳的交接班策略，在交接班前并不“妨碍”整治包括军队内部的腐败等问题。通过查出军队高层腐败的同时，也向外界印证了中共最高层交接班的成熟与顺畅。
   
  春节前夕，网上广为流传刘源对600名将领进行的一次新春讲话，可谓悲壮激越，慷慨激昂。刘源讲话中直接告诉高级将领们，在他主管的部门中，腐败“非常严重”、“随处可见”、“触手可及”。“这已经涉及到共产党和解放军的生死存亡，我宁死也不会放手。”刘源说，腐败在军队中已经如此根深蒂固，广为蔓延，要坚决铲除，不达目的，死不罢休。一名了解本次讲话的知情人透露，刘源还说：“无论一个人的职位有多高，后台有多硬，我都不会善罢甘休。”刘源甚至说出了：“我即使丢官也要与腐败斗争到底”，来表示他的坚定决心。
• Special report: The twilight of the Bond King | Reuters – The aggressive culture has minted millionaire traders and portfolio managers. The top 30 partners have pulled down an average $33 million a year in compensation in recent years, say people familiar with the firm.

  Gross himself is rolling in it. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $2.2 billion and ranked him as the 188th wealthiest American. In July, he and his wife, Sue, purchased the Beverly Hills home of actress Jennifer Aniston for a reported $37 million. They own a 11,316-square-foot mansion in Indian Wells, California. They also have a 7,091-square-foot house on 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach that backs up to one of the finest golf fairways in the world.

  The Gross family's charitable foundation had $272 million in net assets, according to a 2010 federal tax return. The foundation paid out $25.8 million in grants and donations in 2010.

• 藏人自焚背后的格尔登寺阴影_多维新闻网 – 【多维新闻】近日藏人自焚事件发生频率突然增加。2月3日，四川藏区甘孜色达县的3名藏人自焚抗议，造成1死2伤；2月8日，四川阿坝又有一名藏人试图自焚，但很快被警方带走，目前下落不明；2月11日，阿坝一名18岁藏族尼姑自焚。自2011年以来，中国自焚死亡的藏人数目已升至23人。从藏人自焚的地域来看，包括四川阿坝14人（其中，格尔登寺僧人12人），西藏昌都1人，青海1人，四川甘孜7人，印度和尼泊尔各1人。不难发现，格尔登寺和甘孜地区最为集中。
  对此分析人士指出，违背佛教教义的自焚事件频发，说明海外藏独势力的手段已经走向极端化，而从自焚事件的发生地多集中在四川阿坝格尔登寺和甘孜地区可以看出，如果西藏问题是普遍藏人的问题，那么激进行为就不应该只发生在某个地方，因此将这一系列自焚事件看做是有预谋、有组织的极端行为，也并不为过。
• 党报评孟连群体事件：少数干部对群众麻木不仁_新闻_腾讯网 – 2008年，云南省孟连县发生了震惊全国的“7·19”事件。究其根本原因，是一些干部群众观点树得不牢、群众路线走得不正、群众利益维护不好、群众工作方法不当。3年多来，孟连县痛定思痛、深刻吸取教训，坚持面对面开展群众工作，干群关系有了根本性好转，走出了一条做好群众工作的新路子，谱写了党群干群鱼水情深的新篇章。从“孟连事件”到“孟连经验”的重大转变，得到了中央的充分肯定。孟连的实践证明，只要我们坚持执政为民，真心实意为人民服务，就一定能得到人民的信赖，就没有克服不了的困难。“孟连经验”出在云南，云南应该率先推广好“孟连经验”。从“孟连事件”到“孟连经验”的转变深刻地启示我们，必须加强对党员干部的群众工作教育，始终保持与人民群众最直接的联系。
• 吴英看守所写数万字控告信 以死抗议不公待遇_新闻_腾讯网 –
• Amazon.com: The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan (9780399159886): Michael Hastings: Books – General Stanley McChrystal, the innovative, forward-thinking commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was living large. He was better known to some as Big Stan, M4, Stan, and his loyal staff liked to call him a "rock star." During a spring 2010 trip across Europe to garner additional allied help for the war effort, McChrystal was accompanied by journalist Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone. For days, Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration for what they saw as a lack of leadership. When Hastings's piece appeared a few months later, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was ordered to Washington, where he was fired unceremoniously.

  In The Operators, Hastings picks up where his Rolling Stone coup ended. He gives us a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of our military commanders, their high-stakes maneuvers and often bitter bureaucratic infighting. Hastings takes us on patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands, to late-night bull sessions of senior military advisors, to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building gone awry. And as he weighs the merits and failings of old-school generals and the so-called COINdinistas-the counterintelligence experts-Hastings draws back the curtain on a hellish complexity and, he fears, an unwinnable war.

• Amazon.com: With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful (9780805092059): Glenn Greenwald: Books – From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America

  From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world.

  Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud.

  Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else.

• CH55BN Quote – China-US 55 Index – Bloomberg –
• Macquarie Cuts 10% of Asia Investment Jobs – Bloomberg –
• Apple joins industry-funded labor monitor for China factory audit – latimes.com – Apple has responded to a wave of criticism of its labor practices in China by joining an industry-funded labor monitoring organization that will conduct extensive audits of factories run by Apple's Chinese manufacturing partners. 

  The Fair Labor Assn. audits would including the vast Foxconn facilities in Shenzhen and Chengdu that employ hundreds of thousands of workers, and which have been the locus of a number of worker safety problems in recent years. Last May, a fire at one of the plants killed four and injured nearly 20 workers, and in 2010, 13 Foxconn employees jumped to their deaths from factory rooftops.

• Twitter Blog: Securing your Twitter experience with HTTPS – Now, HTTPS will be on by default for all users, whenever you sign in to Twitter.com. If you prefer not use it, you can turn it off on your Account Settings page. HTTPS is one of the best ways to keep your account safe and it will only get better as we continue to improve HTTPS support on our web and mobile clients.
• EA and Tencent to take The Sims Social game to China | VentureBeat –

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