'No women dancers in CNY show'

ALOR STAR: The Pas-led Kedah government has threatened to interrupt a stage performance to usher in the Chinese New Year if adult women performers take part in the event.

The warning was relayed to the event organiser, which had drawn up plans to hold the performance in a shopping complex here on Feb 15.

The two-page directive was signed by state Arts and Culture Committee chairman Datuk Dr Hamdan Mohamad Khalib.

The letter, dated Jan 19, also stated that if women performers were needed, only secondary schoolgirls should be engaged.

Those taking part in the performance had also been warned against dressing indecently, while singers could only belt out tunes to the beat of minus-one music.

The five-item guideline also demanded the organiser to submit a list of artistes and their songs prior to the event.

The directive also stated that only songs of religious nature were allowed.
It was also stated in the guideline that the state government reserved the right to stop the event immediately if there was any indecent dancing and singing performances.

The directive, issued despite the opposition bloc's repeated claims of religious and cultural tolerance, had drawn flak from many quarters, including state Parti Keadilan Rakyat vice-chairman Tan Chow Kang.

Tan, who is also state Chinese Community Affairs Committee chairman, said it was not right for the state government to impose such guidelines on the Chinese.

Echoing the same sentiment was Kedah Pas Supporters Club chairman Tan Weng Fatt, who described the rule as unfair to non-Muslims.

"The rule on the dress code is acceptable but the ban on adult women performing is just too much.
"I just don't get it. Why impose a ban on adult women and allow secondary schoolgirls to perform?"
State Gerakan chairman Dr Cheah Soon Hai, who revealed the directive, described the guidelines as an unprecedented move by the Pas-led state government.

"I am afraid the state government will impose the same rules on other festive celebrations," said Dr Cheah, who is also Derga assemblyman.

Dr Hamdan could not be reached for comment.

In Ipoh, MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said the party had received complaints regarding the directive.

Speaking after opening the MCA's 64th anniversary celebration here yesterday, Dr Chua said DAP might not oppose the ruling but MCA viewed it as an infringement of non-Muslim rights.

Expressing surprise that DAP did not raise an alarm over the matter, Dr Chua said the directive should be an eye-opener for the Chinese.

Brand new Corvette kicks off Detroit car show

DETROIT, Michigan: A sparkling new Corvette with as much Italian lines as American dash kicked off the annual North American Auto Show Sunday, the first makeover in eight years for the iconic US sports car.

Six decades after the Chevrolet speedster came on the market, the new  Corvette easily earned the respect of the Detroit automotive press, with one  saying its “Italianate lines” suggested the class leader Ferrari.

 

“The soul of our company is sitting right here in Corvette,” said Mark  Reuss, president for the Americas of Chevrolet parent General Motors. “This car  is the reason I work at GM.”

 

GM, pulling out of an industry wide recession in 2008 to 2010, ordered a  sweeping redesign of the current C6 model: a new platform, new 450 horsepower  motor, and new exterior and interior, held together with a good dose of carbon  fiber to keep it light and fast.

 

The company said it was the most powerful base model Corvette it had ever  launched, capable of reaching 100 kph in 4 seconds flat.

 

But it is also, the company said, the most efficient Corvette ever, its  emissions lower than the C6.

 

It should hit the market in the third quarter of 2013

China's worst people of 2012

Rankings of the rank: China's worst people of 2012

Sina Weibo users have named their worst people of 2012, with disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai and Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan both high on the list, reports Hong Kong's Apple Daily.

The rankings have been accumulating votes on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, since last July. One hundred finalists were selected from over 1,000 candidates put forward by netizens for their despicable, shameless or vulgar character and deeds.

Bo, who last year was at the center of the biggest scandal to hit Chinese politics in twenty years, topped the rankings for his shameless self-defense at the annual meeting of the National People's Conference last March, where his defiant cry that he and his family were being smeared with accusations of corruption contributed to him being sacked a few days later. While many of the accusations leveled online about Bo and his wife Gu Kailai were indeed outlandish, enough of them were true for Gu to be given a suspended death sentence for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, while Bo has been kicked out of the party and awaits trial for his abuses of power as party chief of Chongqing.

Fang Zhouzi, a biochemist well known for his campaigns exposing pseudoscience and fraud, in particular his claim that popular author Han Han does not write his own books, follows Bo, as netizens judge his campaigns — which have revealed some genuine cases of misconduct — are largely self-aggrandizing.

Jackie Chan makes 14th on the list, having gone from fighting the system in his films to being the real-life system's most enthusiastic supporter as he moves into middle age. Chan has made himself unpopular by criticizing Hong Kong as a "city of protest" in a recent interview with Guangzhou's Southern People Weekly, coupled with previous statements to the effect that Chinese people cannot handle freedom and need to be controlled.

Perhaps less well known outside China are Fang Binxing, ranked 7th, the president of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications who is the chief architect of the country's internet censorship technology, and Yu Qiuyu, ranked 21st, who made a fake donation to victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and showed disrespect to those who died in the disaster.

For his public assertion that people from Hong Kong are bastards and dogs, Peking University professor Kong Qingdong showed himself to lack the wisdom and tact of his illustrious ancestor Confucius, also earning himself a spot in the top ten of people with the least admirable character. Scholar Zhang Heci meanwhile is deemed a spineless suck-up for being a prominent defender of the party which purged his liberal intellectual grandfather Zhang Dongsun in the 1950s and finally succeeded in hounding him to death in the Cultural Revolution a decade later.

Diplomat Sha Zukang, a former secretary general of the UN Economic and Social Affairs Department, is ranked 8th for his remarks that human rights in China are five times better than in the United States.
Just scraping in to the worst of the worst is Xu Jing, a contestant on If You Are the One, who went on the TV dating show to find her ideal spouse, neglecting to reveal that she was already married

Nearly nude model struts Nanjing jewelry market

Golden streak: Nearly nude model struts Nanjing jewelry market

A woman wearing only skin-colored underwear has been parading a jewelry market in Nanjing with a snake design painted on her body and her back bearing the words "gold prices streaking," reports Want Daily, our Chinese-language sister newspaper.

The owner of a gold shop at the Zijin Aitao Gold Jewelry Trading Center in the Jiangsu provincial capital held a body painting show as an eyecatching way to point out that their gold prices of 369 yuan (US$59) per gram are the lowest in town. The upcoming Chinese New Year will usher in the Year of the Snake, explaining the serpent motif.

The center covers an area of about 30,000 square meters with two underground floors and one ground floor plus a large leisure plaza, atrium and fountain. It is the foremost jewelry market in Nanjing and the largest center in eastern China for ordering coins, gold and silver souvenirs and gifts.