Review: Su Tong – Madwoman on the Bridge
Su Tong, Madwoman on the Bridge, Transworld Publishers, 2008. Su Tong is a Chinese author who has gained international recognition for his work, recently being nominated for the Man Booker...
Category: Asia
Is Green light worth the price? CFLs, China and carbon emissions
Thomas Edison said two prescient things about the manufacturing of lightbulbs: "we now know a thousand ways not to build a light bulb” and "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will...
Floods in Australia… but what about the others?
Floods are rampant worldwide just at the present. There has been one disaster after another between the flooding in the northern Australian state of Queensland, South Africa, Brazil and the...
The Talk of the Town: What is Education for?
In Hong Kong, Directly-subsidized schools (DSS) have coped with public image damage lately. The Audit Office of the government issued a report blasting the financial mismanagement of some DSS...
London Film Festival 2010: “Fire in Babylon” is gorgeous
Viv Richards, the peerless genius of West Indian batsmen, fixes the camera with his steely glare. The very same one he used when joining combat with the best bowlers in the world before hammering...
Rinus Van de Velde on being “friends” with Vladimir Mayakovsky
Artist Rinus Van de Velde works and lives in Antwerp, and his last exhibition was in Seoul, at Korea's International Art Fair. At first glance, Van de Velde’s works looked to me like old photos,...
The Muslim Question: It’s not about “decency”
As a Pakistani-American who was raised Muslim, I've been abstaining from weighing in on the unrestrained anti-Muslim crusade that has recently metastasized to untenable proportions worldwide, partly...
Shonen Knife at Bottom of the Hill – so damn nice
After nearly 20 years in the business, Shonen Knife are still neither bored nor boring. The punk/pop band from Osaka has always been a trio, but there have been quite a few lineup changes over the...
Justice for Cambodia? The Kaing Guek Eav verdict
The verdict is in. Kaing Guek Eav, aka Comrade Duch (68) of the Khmer Rouge was convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions by the trial chamber of...
Ahmadi killings – we are all guilty
On Friday, May 28, 2010, gunmen wearing suicide jackets and carrying grenades opened fire on two separate Ahmadi congregations in the city of Lahore as they were gathered for Friday prayer. Men got...