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Piano Covers Online Blog (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
Conventional wisdom would have it that Billy Corgan should be reassembling the classic lineup of The Smashing Pumpkins - James Iha, D'Arcy and Jimmy Chamberlin, along with himself - for a de rigueur 20th anniversary take-the-money-and-run tour. As it turns out, that's the furthest thing from Corgan's mind. Rather than revisit the past, the Pumpkins mainman is putting together a new version of the...
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Spinner.com (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News Billy Corgan will take the stage as part of the Backwards Clock Society in order to help raise money for Laura Masura, the former head of the Smashing Pumpkins fan club. Masura shattered her leg on Sept. 9 in a motorcycle crash on the Pacific Coast Highway, stalling her ability to make a living producing jams from ingredients obtained from local Southern California...
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
Kim Jong-il's reported statement to Wen Jiabao that North Korea was willing to return to the six-party talks is a small step, but a welcome one.
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virtualreview: china|blogs (Free subscription) | 09/15/2009
At Open Democracy, Kerry Brown writes up the results of a month-long tour of rural China: In China's northeast, quasi-mafia groups have made entire rural areas their fiefdoms, which they run according to their extensive business interests. In the...
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Danwei (Free subscription) | 09/15/2009
At Open Democracy, Kerry Brown writes up the results of a month-long tour of rural China: In China's northeast, quasi-mafia groups have made entire rural areas their fiefdoms, which they run according to their extensive business interests. In the southeast province of Fujian, similar elite economic groups have established control of villages via local representatives who ruthlessly pursue the groups'...
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Britannia Radio (Free subscription) | 09/14/2009
China’s shadow sector: power in pieces , Kerry Brown I spent the month of August 2009 travelling around China and looking at the state of democracy (in the sense of "village elections"), the rule of law, and civil society. It was a sobering experience full of disturbing revelations. ... Read more
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Blog Town, PDX (Free subscription) | 08/18/2009
It was gossip a few months ago when we blogged about it , but now it's official: Mike Byrne, the 19-year-old from Beaverton, is the new Smashing Pumpkins drummer . Is Portland music the new farm team for national acts? Will an 18-year-old from Troutdale be the new D'arcy? Will the band's announcement refer to Beaverton as Portland? So many questions. Let's ask the Blinking With Fists of press releases:...
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 08/02/2009
One theory that was speedily shredded after the financial crash in 2007-2008 was the idea that Asia in general, and China in particular, were decoupled from the rest of the global economy and would avoid the consequences of the economic mayhem ravaging North America and Europe. But the cutting up of credit cards in London and New York was followed immediately by factories closing in China.
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Times of the Internet (Free subscription) | 07/15/2009
BEIJING, July 15 (UPI) -- China slammed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for reportedly calling Beijing's handling of the situation in Urumqi a kind of genocide. People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist party, citing a media report, said Chinese were angered by Erdogan's charge of genocide, which it said was made during the weekend. The July 5 violence between Turkic-speaking...
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El Campeador's Weblog (Free subscription) | 07/15/2009
continue reading at openDemocracy The challenge of Xinjiang to China’s central government authority exceeds even that of Tibet, says Kerry Brown. The hardest test Xinjiang’s tragedy is that it is a place where the central leadership cannot, for the sake of its own legitimacy, compromise. But in order to solve the problems of this area, it would have [...]
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 07/09/2009
Whatever the facts behind the terrible events in Xinjiang, they underline one of the key vulnerabilities of China: its insecure energy resources. The problem is at the very heart of China's strategy for the future and Hu Jintao was wise to leave the G8 meeting in Italy to return to China. Mishandling Urumqi now could be devastating both for the future stability of the country he leads and for the...
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The China Beat (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009
Berkshire Publishing has recently published its Encyclopedia of China with contributions by China scholars like Sherman Cochran, Kerry Brown, Judy Polumbaum and many others and featuring one thousand entries on a diverse range of historical, social and cultural topics. A few of the entries caught our attention as a little unusual for a print encyclopedia—including entries on “internet use,”...
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 05/26/2009
North Korea's predictability in serving up unpredictable nasty surprises continues. A "satellite" launch in early April turns out only to be the prelude to another nuclear test, this time bringing condemnation from Beijing to Washington. Since its economy started imploding in the 1980s, North Korea has always had the most limited hand to play, but played it with great skill. With a quarter...
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Open Democracy (Free subscription) | 05/14/2009
A recent Shanghai taxi-ride was a lesson in China'a constant capacity to surprise. The driver responded to my question about what business had been like lately by saying: "Pretty good. But I only work three days a week anyway. I have other interests. Birds. I have seven birds". If this conjured the vision of a scholar-gentleman from the Qing dynasty driving the car, it was quickly dispelled....
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Open Democracy (Free subscription) | 03/11/2009
In China's industrial zones today, there is a palpable feeling of the great wheels of this enormous, complex economy grinding down. The northeast city of Harbin is deep in state-owned-industry territory - part of the Heilongjiang region where the then-premier Zhu Rongji was in the 1990s willing to see millions laid off work in order to rationalise and streamline the state sector. Kerry Brown is an...
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