Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
May 19, 2014
Second Chinese university starts Rhodes-style program
BEIJING (AP) — An elite Chinese university has announced plans for China’s
second international program modelled after the Rhodes Scholarship, as the
country seeks more influence in global education and greater international
prestige befitting its economic rise. Beijing-based Peking University said it will
launch the Yenching Academy to recruit top scholars from China and the world
to study in a one-year master’s degree program. The announcement came a year
after the founder of American private equity and financial advisory firm
Blackstone, Steve Schwarzman, set up a program at rival Tsinghua University
and led a $350-million endowment campaign. Both schools said the programs
are modelled on the Rhodes Scholarship, an elite award for students to study at
the University of Oxford.
Indonesia bans video sharing site for nudity
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia has banned the popular video sharing
site Vimeo, saying it contains nudity, which officials in the world’s most
populous Muslim country consider to be pornographic material. Information
and communication minister Tiffatul Sembiring said in a statement that he
made the decision after receiving complaints from the public. He said the site
content was against Indonesia’s anti-pornography law and his ministry found
nearly 15,000 videos tagged with words related to nudity and ordered all
Indonesia-based internet service providers to block the New-York-based site.
The controversial law, passed in 2008, says pornography includes displays of
nudity or nudity-like features, and that all sites in Indonesia are banned from
running such materials. The ban has sparked a public outcry in Indonesia, with
Twitter and Facebook exploding with negative comments. Indonesians are one
of the world’s biggest users of social media.
Myanmar deports Australian journalist
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Authorities in Myanmar say they deported an
Australian video journalist for covering a press freedom rally without a proper
visa. Agnus Watson, an intern with the Democratic Voice of Burma, was
covering a protest in Magwe region against a one-year prison sentence given to
another broadcast journalist, Zaw Pe, who was found guilty last month of
entering an education department office without authorization and
interviewing students. Myanmar only recently emerged from a half-century of
military rule. A nominally civilian government installed in 2011 has been widely
praised for freeing up the press, but media watchdog groups warn the climate is
worsening. Several journalists have been arrested, tried, and jailed in recent
months, some on criminal charges. Presidential spokesman Ye Htut said on
Facebook that Watson was “deported for taking part in a protest, violating the
visa regulations.”
Interpol, Philippines bust cyber extortion network
MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — Philippine police, backed by Interpol, have
arrested dozens of suspected members of an online extortion syndicate who
duped hundreds of victims worldwide into exposing themselves in front of
webcams or engaging in lewd chats, including a Scottish teenager who
committed suicide after being blackmailed, according to officials. At least 58
Filipino suspects in the capital, Manila, and three other regions were arrested
after investigators from Interpol, the U.S. Homeland Security Department, and
police from three other countries traced online chats from some of the victims’
computers, Philippine national police chief Allan Purisima said. More than 260
desktop and laptop computers, mobile phones, pornographic materials, and
other pieces of evidence were seized during the raids by 15 police teams, he told a
news conference in Manila. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” senior
superintendent Gilbert Sosa, director of the Philippine police Anti-Cybercrime
Group, said of the arrests, one of the largest hauls by local police in recent years.
Many more suspects and extortion gangs remain at large and will be pursued, he
said. The syndicates prey on mostly male victims by employing women with fake
Facebook accounts who strike up online chats with them. The victims are duped
into engaging in lewd talk, exposing themselves before a webcam, or performing
a sexual act which are recorded and used to blackmail them, Philippine police
said.
China sentences man to 10 years for spying
BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese court has convicted a man of spying and
sentenced him to 10 years in prison for leaking classified military documents to
a foreign spy who also approached more than 50 other people around China,
according to state media. The official China Daily newspaper said on its website
that the man stole secret military documents and transferred photographs and
other useful information to the foreign party. It did not say to which foreign
governments the information may have been transferred, and didn’t cite sources
for its report. The China Daily and other official media identified the suspect by
the surname Li. They said the recipient of the documents was named Feige, but
gave no other information about the person. Interest in the aims of China’s
booming military spending has grown in recent years, particularly among
officials in the U.S., the region’s primary military power. Taiwan, which China
has threatened to use force against to bring it under its control, and Japan, are
also close observers of China’s defense outlays. China’s official defense spending
this year grew 12.2 percent to $132 billion, continuing more than two decades of
nearly unbroken double-digit percentage increases.
MONSTER MAKEOVER. A large-size figure of Godzilla in a diorama is on display at Cheepa’s gallery in Tokyo.
Haruo Nakajima, the stunt actor who was the first Godzilla back in 1954, says a true Godzilla must be a figure of pathos
as it destroys buildings and bridges in its path. Nakajima had to invent the character from scratch, and went to the zoo to
study the way elephants and bears moved. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)
Loyal to zip-up Godzilla,
Japan wary of U.S. remake
By Yuri Kageyama
AP Business Writer
OKYO — The big-screen Godzilla that
scared and thrilled viewers in 1954 was
an actor in a rubber suit with a zipper
up its back. And many Japanese fans still
prefer that monster over a Hollywood version
made in terrifying, full 3-D computer-graphics
glory.
“American Godzilla is just a giant iguana
freaking out,” says Mudai Nozaki, 30, who
believes Godzilla is Japan’s greatest contribu-
tion to cinematic history next to Seven
Samurai and Kagemusha director Akira
Kurosawa.
His reaction is surprisingly typical among
Japanese who watched the trailer of the film,
titled simply Godzilla, which premiered May
16 in the U.S. and will debut in July in Japan.
They wonder if the Warner Bros. remake will
be a tribute or an embarrassment for Japan’s
monstrous legacy.
Japanese Godzilla-lovers say their iconic
hero falls into a special phantasmal category
called kaiju, which have more imaginary,
far-fetched traits than what they see as more
mundane monsters like King Kong or
Frankenstein.
And the Hollywood version is no kaiju, said
Kazuya Haraguchi, who collects Godzilla
goods, including a 100,000 yen ($1,000) com-
plete DVD collection from Toho Studios, which
came with a huge fangs-baring Godzilla head.
The 45-year-old technician for reel films
says Hollywood already botched it once with a
1998 remake, directed by Roland Emmerich.
And almost everything about the new
Godzilla is wrong again, from head to toe —
T
how its arms are limp at its sides, how the
scales on its back are too regular, even the
shape of its head.
“The head is too small,” said Haraguchi.
“The voice is all wrong. It has to be much
higher.”
He shrugs off the creature in the new film as
depicting what he pronounced as “Gadzilla,”
imitating an American accent — instead of
Gojira (Go-jeeh-ruh), the way Japanese say it,
a word that combines “gorilla” and kujira, or
whale.
“I hope the day will come when a Japanese
director can make a Godzilla movie again for
the world,” he said.
In the original story, Godzilla emerged from
the Pacific Ocean, a mutation awakened by
nuclear-weapons testing on the Bikini Atoll,
underlining Japan’s emotional trauma from
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
The story from Hollywood departs a bit from
that script by having Godzilla stomping into
San Francisco, instead of Tokyo, and
confronting a flying monster that’s not in the
original. But the film stays true to the spirit of
the original in many ways.
All director Gareth Edwards says he has
done is produce an improved, more realistic
Godzilla.
“In our film, for the first time, we will really
see the actual animal again,” he told The
Associated Press.
“I think if you went around the world, and
showed the silhouette of Godzilla, he’d
probably be the most recognized character
from movie history,” he said. “Yet, as an adult,
Continued on page 4
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