Meltdown in Tibet

BEIJING LOSES FACE--
There will be FIREWORKS in BEJING TONIGHT
--not the celebratory kind. The bully of the South China Sea
meets his match, sort of.

MONGOLIAN ROCK!
Curious: band members are green under stage lights but a female instrumentalist is wearing an orange top. Explanation for this phenomenon?

BOOK about TIBETAN ENVIRONMENTALISTS
Sounds like a great book about a rare subject: Tibetan environmentalists, a highly endangered species. But sold at US$100 a copy, it will hardly reach any readers at all. Maybe libraries will buy a few copies. Why do publishers price themselves way out of the market? This is not available as an ebook, either.

"We (CHINA) will not fight in the court, but we will certainly fight for our sovereignty". - Chinese ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming.

ASIA's INCREDIBLE BIODIVERSITY
is showcased in the following piece, which makes that point that unheard-of Asian species could die out before most of us even know they exist. Not helping matters is China's frenzy of megadam building and mining in Tibet--almost like they are hell-bent on destroying biodiversity. Curiously, a photo captioned "Wild Yaks" looks completely out of place because the yaks are shown walking along a road for vehicles. Judging from their size, these look like domestic yaks. The lead photo below is the highly endangered Red-shanked Douc langur, found in northern Vietnam and in Laos. It is also called the Five-colour Monkey, due to its elaborate coloration.

China's real EEZ (economic zone recognized by UN under UN Law of the Sea). Versus China's claim with its nine-dash line, extending all the way to the Philippines.

CHINA's FAKE ISLANDS
China is well known for counterfeit goods. Seems that extends to islands in the South China Sea. Some "islands" that they claim are merely reefs that have been dredged to heck and built up, and thus completely artificial--given that a reef is below the surface, while an island breaches the surface. UN international law relates to islands, not to reworked reefs or man-made features. So in the article below, reference is made to Chinese-held FEATURES, meaning not a recognized natural island. China is bending the rules again, and hoping the world is ignorant enough, or stupid enough, not to notice. Let's see what happens on Judgement Day, July 12, for China vs the Philippines in their conflicting claims in the South China Sea.

THE BATHROOM SCHOOL of ARCHITECTURE
CHINESE ARCHITECTURE is not known for being innovative.
Mostly bland and concrete. In Tibet, Chinese buildings covered in tinted glass or white tiling stand out for their sheer lack of imagination, compared to beautiful traditional Tibetan buildings. The tiling looks like the bathroom school of architecture. The clash of cultures is visible right there in Lhasa in the buildings alone. In this story, another part of the bathroom featured. Chinese architecture is the pits!

If a UN member bullies a fellow member, and has no respect at all to the rules of membership of the UN, why can't the UN kick out of its fold that abusive member? That abusive member should either resign from the organization or get kicked out by the general assembly. Let's kick the China's dictatorship out and invite democratic Taiwan back into the fold.

Meanwhile, under the waters of the South China Sea...

What the Heck?

Sometimes auto-translate for ENGRISH does not quite work!
A lot of these are menu items, where obviously the restaurant has saved funds by doing their own translation instead of hiring a professional.

Seems like the newly elected government of the Philippines has a far more conciliatory approach to China over the South China Sea issue, even talking about sharing the resources.

PIRATES of the SOUTH CHINA SEA
"A portrait of “Comrade” Mao Zedong hung in a place of honor behind him, alongside an expensive satellite navigation system supplied by the Chinese government. Chen said catches are much better in the Spratlys than in China’s depleted inshore waters, but the captain said he is also fulfilling his patriotic duty."