It's time for a jailhouse rock
An amateur
dance routine to the Michael Jackson song Thriller, staged by 1,500
Filipino prison inmates, has been viewed over 11 million times on YouTube. Part of a rehabilitation programme, the prisoners had been practicing several routines
in the hope of participating in the colourful ‘Sinulog' festival that takes
place on the island of Cebu each January. See the videos...
Video published on YouTube by byronfgarcia, 17 July 2007
Justice is dogged for former Yukos executive
Thirty-five year old Vasiliy Aleksanyan is a former executive for the Russian oil giant Yukos, which the Russian government has been persecuting for the past few years. Aleksanyan also served as acting Vice President for 6 days before he was arrested. Like his previous boss the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, he was accused of tax evasion and money laundering. For the past two years he has been awaiting trial in prison. Aleksanyan is dying of AIDS, but the authorities refuse to allow him to be hospitalised. He says that the prosecution offered to free him if he testified against former heads of Yukos. Well-known antagonists of Putin's Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev are already serving prison sentences. Read more...
Vox pops… with a script
Every journalist dreads doing a vox pop. Hours of standing outside, microphone in hand, camera over shoulder, always looking for the ‘right client'; the person who'll give you a clear and concise comment on the subject. But local television in China has found a solution. Journalists (see photos) prepare comments in advance, and simply ask passers-by to read them out. Read more...
Not the best choice for a campaign tune, Hillary
To liven-up her meetings democrat candidate Clinton often uses the song ‘When the lady smiles' by the Netherlands group Golden Earring. However, a Dutch blogger has unearthed the video clip... which tells the story of a mentally deranged rapist who assaults a nun on the underground, banned by MTV in 1984.
When the lady Smiles, Golding Earring 1984
Modern art hijacks television
A group of artists in the Czech
Republic are facing up to
three years in prison for playing a practical joke. Last July, the ‘Ztohoven' art group hijacked a Czech
television broadcast and introduced the image of an atomic cloud into a weather
report. Early risers who were tuned in to the morning programme were stunned to
see the cloud rising in the midst of a peaceful country landscape. Read more...
Everyone wants a piece of Jérôme Kerviel
Just hours after Société Générale revealed the biggest fraud in history on Thursday, we received a photo of the rogue trader at hand. It appears that one of his colleagues looked him up on the company's intranet and circulated his profile page by email. Using the internet, it took less than half a day to reveal the identity of the young trader and circulate it around the world. Jérôme Kerviel, ‘the man worth five billion', has since become a kind of icon on the web. A funny phenomenon, but worrying too. Read more...
China continues to supply Burma with military equipment
A blog by Burmese exiles in Thailand (Vimutti) has published photos of new military vehicles delivered to Burma from China on 15 January. The vans are the same model that was used to transport soldiers and prisoners during September's crackdown. However, Chinese diplomats insist they are working hard to get the Junta to negotiate with the opposition and to make efforts in terms of human rights. Kio, our Observer for Burma, comments on the situation. Read more...
Chinese FAW trucks in Ruili (Sino-Burmese frontier).
Gaza: Taking Egypt by storm
Since part of the frontier wall between the Gaza strip and Egypt was broken down on 23 January, thousands of Palestinians have poured into Egypt. Cut off from the world by a blockade enforced by Israel, the country is running out of basic commodities and has taken Egyptian trade by storm. Our Observer Wael Abbas went to the frontier; here is his account of events and a video he filmed on the scene. Read more...
Video posted on YouTube by Wael Abbas, 25 January 2008
Villagers forced out of their homes by riot police
One hundred villagers in south-west China were removed from their homes by a force of 300 riot police last Friday. Authorities ordered the armed force to evacuate the village so that they could hand over the land to developers who they had recently sold it to. The villagers have received almost nothing from the deal and most of them have ended up homeless as a result. They will inevitably follow in the path of tens of thousands of other Chinese individuals who are pursuing futile legal chases. See the video of the exiled villagers and read the commentary of a Chinese blogger, He Weihua. Read more...
Société Générale: a banker explains how they got away with €4.9 bln
Société Générale, the French bank, announced this morning that it's been the victim of a rogue trader who has extorted €4.9 bln; saying that it was the bad placement of ‘one of their traders' that allowed the mistake. ‘Valerie', a strategist from another large French bank, explains how it would be very difficult for a trader to manage such an exorbitant fraud by himself. Read more...
