Review: “Liz & Dick” Is Bad, But You Knew That
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Lifetime’s “Liz & Dick” is very bad, just as you knew it would be.
Let’s not pretend it ever had a shot at being decent. The decision to cast Lindsay Lohan as Oscar-winning screen legend Elizabeth Taylor told us right up front that the filmmakers were more interested in trashy publicity than quality. She isn’t good, but no one could be good with this dialogue.
On an online “Saturday Night Live” skit this week, Bobby Moynihan portrayed celebrity chef Guy Fieri responding to a New York Times review of his new Times Square restaurant, saying the paper shouldn’t have had high expectations.
“If you come in expecting Le Cirque, then you’re a le jerk,” he says.
That applies here, too. But “Liz & Dick” isn’t even good as junk food goes. It’s redundant and boring in a way no star could save.
It’s been suggested that the movie could at least be dopey fun, the stuff of drinking games. But that seems a perverse way to watch a movie about two people who, as portrayed here, were messy drunks. The only appropriate drinking game might be one where you take a shot of water every time you scream at the screen, “STOP DRINKING.”
Because the producers invested nearly all their energies in stunt casting, the only point of interest is how Lohan looks and sounds as Taylor. Though she often looks lovely – nice to see after her years of battling drugs and alcohol – Lohan doesn’t look like Taylor, just like someone wearing knockoffs of her clothes and diamonds. She also doesn’t sound like her, or seem to be making any attempt to.
Taylor and Richard Burton (Grant Bowler) meet cute while making “Cleopatra” together and quickly fall into a dull cycle of making out, breaking up, drinking too much, fleeing the paparazzi, and conniving to make movies together. This takes up the middle hour or so of the two-hour movie, and requires that the last 15 minutes be stuffed with an absurd number of events, including (spoiler alert) a cancer scare, a remarriage, and a death.
It’s impossible to feel any emotional connection with the characters, because, as portrayed here, they’re self-centered asses. It doesn’t help that the dialogue is awful, and that many scenes are less than 30 seconds long, which doesn’t allow us into the character’s heads. The scenes are strung together by sub-sitcom transitional music that at least tips us off to the disposability of the entire movie.
Lohan will probably make the case, somewhere down the line, that her flat, vacant line readings were a campy attempt to distance herself from the film’s many bad lines. One of the worst comes when Taylor’s mother notes her tendency to get married a lot.
Mom: “Not that I’m counting, but if I’m not mistaken you’ve just ended, what, you’re fourth marriage?”
Liz: “Who’s counting?”
Well, not her mother, since she just said… never mind.
Bowler is better, handling his lines with the professionalism of a good soaps actor. At one point he gets to call Liz a “harridan” in an amusing Welsh accent. But he has none of Burton’s gravity or grit. He may also be too generically handsome for the role, no surprise in a movie with no pretensions of depth.
Lohan’s costumery is especially silly near the end, when her hair has grey streaks but she still looks far too young to play a woman in her sixties. We’re also told throughout the movie how fat Liz and Dick are getting – usually by Liz and Dick themselves – but we have to pretend to see it, since the actors who play them remain trim.
Perhaps because of her own awful relationship with the press, Lohan seems unwilling to let herself appear vulnerable. It’s become a major impediment to her performances.
Her idol, Marilyn Monroe, continued to study acting well into her stardom, and turned in some very good performances as a result. Lohan might want to imitate Monroe’s interest in her craft, rather than just dressing like her for magazine spreads.
It’s too late for her to do more than dress like Taylor.
TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News
First Person: Unemployed, Disabled and Hungry for Work
Label: HealthFive million Americans are among the long-term unemployed–those without a job for 27 weeks or longer–according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 7.3 million are looking for work, while the unemployment rate sits at 7.9 percent. Numbers aside, individual stories illustrate how America is affected. To see how joblessness hits home, Yahoo News asked unemployed workers to share their job-hunting stories. Here’s one.
FIRST PERSON | I am 40 and live in Racine, Wis. I have been unemployed since I was 33. I try to find work, but I’ve been disabled since 27, and I do not collect Social Security or other income. On job applications, when I am asked if I have any disabilities, I answer yes.
I have even tried to travel to different states for employment. I am seeking employment where I can. I have tried Lowe’s, Home Depot and other similar stores. All I get are letters saying I do not qualify for employment.
By trade, I am a tattoo artist, a job I have been very good at until I became disabled. I have shoulder impingement syndrome, which consists of some of the following: torn ligaments, torn tendons, bone spurs, bursitis and arthritis.
And constant pain. I feel the weather. I hardly sleep. I wish I could be somewhere else, as it is hard on my mind to deal with on a daily basis.
Still, I try to find work where I can in this tough economy, and I am on several lists to be called and never have been called to date.
I am too proud to try to get Social Security. I cannot even afford insurance to get my condition fixed. I even have applied for local state insurance to get the problem resolved so I can work again, always with no luck. So I have remained unemployed now for over 10 years and going.
I injured myself, and I am not able to lift more than 10 pounds at a time or stand or sit for long periods of time.
I just want a job so I can try to cover the medical expenses myself since I cannot get help. Surgery costs are around $ 18,000, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.
I am no stranger to hard work. Since 12, I cut grass, shoveled snow, painted houses and fences, swept chimneys, worked in heat treatment plants with dirt and oil, worked in the casting of hot metals, laid brick, made bathroom sinks, swept floors in factories, did drill-press work, sanding work, and worked at fast food places.
I do not lie to get jobs or hid my injury. I do want to work, but I worry now that my disability will mean I won’t be hired by companies because they’re afraid it will come back on them and their company.
I cannot afford private insurance as I do not have steady income. Now I find whatever I can do to reach my goal of paying for my own surgery.
It is a sad world when you live in pain, day in and day out, and you want and need to find work.
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Germany rejects Swiss tax deal
Label: Business23 November 2012 Last updated at 11:29 ET
Germany’s upper house of parliament has rejected a deal with Switzerland to tax German assets held in Swiss bank accounts.
The deal would have allowed Germans with undeclared assets in Switzerland to avoid punishment by making a one-off payment of between 21% and 41% of the value of their assets.
The deal had been negotiated in April and was due to take effect in January.
But it needed to be ratified by both parliaments.
The rejection by the German upper house, the Bundesrat, prolongs the dispute between the two countries over how to deal with the estimated 180-200bn euros (£145-160bn) of German assets hidden in Switzerland.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had called for support for the deal, saying: “The agreement tries to find a better solution for a situation which is unsatisfactory.”
But Norbert Walter-Borjans, of the main opposition Social Democrats, told the Bundesrat it was a deal which made “honest taxpayers feel like fools”.
Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said her government remained “committed to a successful ratification”.
And the Swiss Bankers Association said in a statement: “The German upper house has missed a major opportunity to reach a fair, optimum and sustainable solution for all parties to definitively settle the bilateral tax issues.”
BBC News – Business
Egypt reformist warns of turmoil from Morsi decree
Label: WorldCAIRO (AP) — Prominent Egyptian democracy advocate Mohammed ElBaradei warned Saturday of increasing turmoil that could potentially lead to the military stepping in unless the Islamist president rescinds his new, near absolute powers, as the country’s long fragmented opposition sought to unite and rally new protests.
Egypt‘s liberal and secular forces — long divided, weakened and uncertain amid the rise of Islamist parties to power — are seeking to rally themselves in response to the decrees issued this week by President Mohammed Morsi. The president granted himself sweeping powers to “protect the revolution” and made himself immune to judicial oversight.
The judiciary, which was the main target of Morsi’s edicts, pushed back Saturday. The country’s highest body of judges, the Supreme Judical Council, called his decrees an “unprecedented assault.” Courts in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria announced a work suspension until the decrees are lifted.
Outside the high court building in Cairo, several hundred demonstrators rallied against Morsi, chanting, “Leave! Leave!” echoing the slogan used against former leader Hosni Mubarak in last year’s uprising that ousted him. Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of young men who were shooting flares outside the court.
The edicts issued Wednesday have galvanized anger brewing against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails, ever since he took office in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president. Critics accuse the Brotherhood — which has dominated elections the past year — and other Islamists of monopolizing power and doing little to bring real reform or address Egypt’s mounting economic and security woes.
Oppositon groups have called for new nationwide rallies Tuesday — and the Muslim Brotherhood has called for rallies supporting Morsi the same day, setting the stage for new violence.
Morsi supporters counter that the edicts were necessary to prevent the courts, which already dissolved the elected lower house of parliament, from further holding up moves to stability by disbanding the assembly writing the new constitution, as judges were considering doing. Like parliament was, the assembly is dominated by Islamists. Morsi accuses Mubarak loyalists in the judiciary of seeking to thwart the revolution’s goals and barred the judiciary from disbanding the constitutional assembly or parliament’s upper house.
In an interview with a handful of journalists, including The Associated Press, Nobel Peace laureate ElBaradei raised alarm over the impact of Morsi’s rulings, saying he had become “a new pharaoh.”
“There is a good deal of anger, chaos, confusion. Violence is spreading to many places and state authority is starting to erode slowly,” he said. “We hope that we can manage to do a smooth transition without plunging the country into a cycle of violence. But I don’t see this happening without Mr. Morsi rescinding all of this.”
Speaking of Egypt’s powerful military, ElBaradei said, “I am sure they are as worried as everyone else. You cannot exclude that the army will intervene to restore law and order” if the situation gets out of hand.
But anti-Morsi factions are chronically divided, with revolutionary youth activists, new liberal political parties that have struggled to build a public base and figures from the Mubarak era, all of whom distrust each other. The judiciary is also an uncomfortable cause for some to back, since it includes many Mubarak appointees who even Morsi opponents criticize as too tied to the old regime.
Opponents say the edicts gave Morsi near dictatorial powers, neutering the judiciary when he already holds both executive and legislative powers. One of his most controversial edicts gave him the right to take any steps to stop “threats to the revolution,” vague wording that activists say harkens back to Mubarak-era emergency laws.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in nationwide protests on Friday, sparking clashes between anti-and pro-Morsi crowds in several cities that left more than 200 people wounded.
On Saturday, new clashed broke out in the southern city of Assiut. Morsi opponents and members of the Muslim Brotherhood swung sticks and threw stones at each other outside the offices of the Brotherhood‘s political party, leaving at least seven injured.
ElBaradei and a six other prominent liberal leaders have announced the formation of a National Salvation Front aimed at rallying all non-Islamist groups together to force Morsi to rescind his edicts.
The National Salvation Front leadership includes several who ran against Morsi in this year’s presidential race — Hamdeen Sabahi, who finished a close third, former foreign minister Amr Moussa and moderate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh. ElBaradei says the group is also pushing for the creation of a new constitutional assembly and a unity government.
ElBaradei said it would be a long process to persuade Morsi that he “cannot get away with murder.”
“There is no middle ground, no dialogue before he rescinds this declaration. There is no room for dialogue until then.”
The grouping seems to represent a newly assertive political foray by ElBaradei, the former chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. ElBaradei returned to Egypt in the year before Mubarak’s fall, speaking out against his rule, and was influential with many of the youth groups that launched the anti-Mubarak revolution.
But since Mubarak’s fall, he has been criticized by some as too Westernized, elite and Hamlet-ish, reluctant to fully assert himself as an opposition leader.
The Brotherhood‘s Freedom and Justice political party, once headed by Morsi, said Saturday in a statement that the president’s decision protects the revolution against former regime figures who have tried to erode elected institutions and were threatening to dissolve the constitutional assembly.
The Brotherhood warned in another statement that there were forces trying to overthrow the elected president in order to return to power. It said Morsi has a mandate to lead, having defeated one of Mubarak’s former prime ministers this summer in a closely contested election.
Morsi’s edicts also removed Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, the prosecutor general first appointed by Mubarak, who many Egyptians accused of not prosecuting former regime figures strongly enough.
Speaking to a gathering of judges cheering support for him at the high court building in Cairo, Mahmoud warned of a “vicious campaign” against state institutions. He also said judicial authorities are looking into the legality of the decision to remove him — setting up a Catch-22 of legitimacy, since under Morsi’s decree, the courts cannot overturn any of his decisions.
“I thank you for your support of judicial independence,” he told the judges.
“Morsi will have to reverse his decision to avoid the anger of the people,” said Ahmed Badrawy, a labor ministry employee protesting at the courthouse. “We do not want to have an Iranian system here,” he added, referring to fears that hardcore Islamists may try to turn Egypt into a theocracy.
Several hundred protesters remained in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Saturday, where a number of tents have been erected in a sit-in following nearly a week of clashes with riot police.
____
Brian Rohan contributed to this report from Cairo.
Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Secret message found with carrier pigeon may never be deciphered
Label: Technology
British man finds carrier pigeon skeleton in his fireplace with unbreakable secret code (Reuters)
Before military forces had secure cell phones and satellite communications, they used carrier pigeons. The highly trained birds delivered sensitive information from one location to another during World War II. Often, the birds found the intended recipient. But not always.
A dead pigeon was recently discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, England. There for roughly 70 years, the bird had a curious canister attached to its leg. Inside was a coded message that has stumped the experts.
The code features a series of 27 groups of five letters. According to Reuters, nobody from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters has been able to decipher it. The message was sent by a Sgt. W. Scott to someone or something identified as “Xo2.”
A spokesperson remarked, “Although it is disappointing that we cannot yet read the message brought back by a brave carrier pigeon, it is a tribute to the skills of the wartime code-makers that, despite working under severe pressure, they devised a code that was indecipherable both then and now.”
The bird was discovered by a homeowner doing renovations earlier this month. In an interview with Reuters, David Martin remarked that bits of birds kept falling from the chimney. Eventually, Margin saw the red canister and speculated that it might contain a secret message. And it seems as if the message will always be secret.
Carrier pigeons played a vital role in wars due to their incredible homing skills. All told, U.K. forces used about 250,000 of the birds during World War II.
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
One Direction makes Billboard history, holds off Aguilera, Del Rey
Label: LifestyleLOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British boyband One Direction made Billboard chart history on Wednesday after storming to the top of the 200 album chart with their second album “Take Me Home,” holding off competition from Christina Aguilera, Soundgarden and Lana Del Rey.
“Take Me Home” notched the third-biggest opening week sales of the year with 540,000 units sold according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, placing it behind only Mumford & Son’s “Babel” and Taylor Swift‘s “Red,” which had the year’s biggest opening with 1.2 million copies sold.
This is also the first time a British band have seen their first two albums debut at the top of the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. Their first album “Up All Night” shot to the top of the chart with 176,000 copies in March this year.
The lead single from “Take Me Home,” “Live While We’re Young” also made Billboard chart history after selling 341,000 copies in its first week, becoming the biggest opening week single sales for a non-U.S. artist.
One Direction were able to trump a new release from pop star and “The Voice” judge Aguilera, who debuted at No. 7 with her fifth studio album “Lotus,” selling 73,000 copies.
She was unable to replicate the success of fellow “Voice” judge Adam Levine, whose band Maroon 5 shot to No. 2 on the album chart in July with “Overexposed,” selling 222,000 copies.
The members of the British-Irish quintet One Direction, aged between 18 and 20, are Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne. They have come a long way since forming on Britain’s “The X Factor,” coming in third place and going on to conquer the U.S. and build a devoted following of fans.
Their success has also piqued the curiosity of interviewer Barbara Walters, who will be speaking to the band for her annual “The 10 Most Fascinating People,” airing on ABC on December 12.
The band will face stiff competition from R&B star Rihanna for the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart next week, as her new album “Unapologetic” is set for a big debut.
Elsewhere on the album chart, seven new debuts entered the top 10 this week.
Taylor Swift‘s “Red” was knocked down to No. 2 by One Direction‘s debut, while the soundtrack for the final “Twilight” film, “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” debuted at No. 3 with sales of 93,000 after the film hit theaters last week.
The soundtrack features lead single “The Forgotten” by Green Day and songs by Passion Pit, Ellie Goulding, Fiest and a duet between “Twilight” cast member Nikki Reed and husband Paul McDonald, a former “American Idol” finalist.
Canadian R&B star The Weeknd landed at No. 4 this week with his hotly anticipated debut, “Trilogy,” while 1990s grunge rock band Soundgarden rounded out the top five with “King Animal,” their first album in 16 years.
Green Day’s “Dos!,” the second installment of their trilogy of new albums this year, came in at No. 9 on the chart with 69,000 copies, a big drop from their first album “Uno!,” which debuted at No. 2 in October with sales of 139,000 copies. The third installment, “Tre!,” is due out on December 11.
Indie-pop songstress Del Rey rounded out the top ten with her latest studio set “Paradise,” an eight-song record which was also offered as part of a deluxe edition of her debut album “Born To Die,” which notched No. 2 on the chart in February.
(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Patricia Reaney and Marguerita Choy)
Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar
Label: HealthLONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.
The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.
On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.
“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.
The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.
Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.
Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.
Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.
It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.
Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.
The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.
The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.
“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.
(Editing by Alison Williams)
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Wall Street Week Ahead: Political wrangling to pinch market’s nerves
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) – Volatility is the name of this game.
With the S&P 500 above 1,400 following five days of gains, traders will be hard pressed not to cash in on the advance at the first sign of trouble during negotiations over tax hikes and spending cuts that resume next week in Washington.
President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders are expected to discuss ways to reduce the budget deficit and avoid the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 that could tip the economy into recession.
As politicians make their case, markets could react with wild swings.
The CBOE Volatility Index <.VIX>, known as the VIX, Wall Street‘s favorite barometer of market anxiety that usually moves in an inverse relationship with the S&P 500, is in a long-term decline with its 200-day moving average at its lowest in five years. The VIX could spike if dealings in Washington begin to stall.
“If the fiscal cliff happens, a lot of major assets will be down on a short-term basis because of the fear factor and the chaos factor,” said Yu-Dee Chang, chief trader and sole principal of ACE Investments in Virginia.
“So whatever you are in, you’re going to lose some money unless you go long the VIX and short the market. The ‘upside risk’ there is some kind of grand bargain, and then the market goes crazy.”
He set the chances of the economy going over the cliff at only about 5 percent.
Many in the market agree there will be some sort of agreement that will fuel a rally, but the road there will be full of political landmines as Democrats and Republicans dig in on positions defended during the recent election.
Liberals want tax increases on the wealthiest Americans while protecting progressive advances in healthcare, while conservatives make a case for deep cuts in programs for the poor and a widening of the tax base to raise revenues without lifting tax rates.
“Both parties will raise the stakes and the pressure on the opposing side, so the market is going to feel much more concerned,” said Tim Leach, chief investment officer of U.S. Bank Wealth Management in San Francisco.
“The administration feels really confident at this point, or a little more than the Republican side of Congress may feel,” he said. “But it’s still a balanced-power Congress so neither side can feel that they can act with impunity.”
THE MIDDLE EAST AND EUROPE
Tension in the Middle East and unresolved talks in Europe over aid for Greece could add to the uncertainty and volatility on Wall Street could surge, analysts say.
An Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force late on Wednesday after a week of conflict, but it was broken with the shooting of a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers, according to Palestine’s foreign minister.
Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating the truce, Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi assumed sweeping powers, angering his opponents and prompting violent clashes in central Cairo and other cities on Friday.
“Those kinds of potential large-scale conflicts can certainly overwhelm some of the fundamental data here at home,” said U.S. Bank’s Leach.
“We are trying to keep in mind the idea that there are a lot of factors that are probably going to contribute to higher volatility.”
On a brighter note for markets, Greece’s finance minister said the International Monetary Fund has relaxed its debt-cutting target for Greece and a gap of only $ 13 billion remains to be filled for a vital aid installment to be paid.
Still, a deal has not been struck, and Greece is increasingly frustrated at its lenders, still squabbling over a deal to unlock fresh aid even though Athens has pushed through unpopular austerity cuts.
HOUSING DATA COULD CONFIRM RECOVERY
Next week is heavy on economic data, especially on the housing front. Some of the numbers have been affected by Superstorm Sandy, which hit the U.S. East Coast more than three weeks ago, killing more than 100 people in the United States alone and leaving billions of dollars in damages.
The housing data, though, could continue to confirm a rebound in the sector that is seen as a necessary step to unlock spending and lower the stubbornly high unemployment rate.
Tuesday’s S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for September is expected to show the eighth straight month of increases, extending the longest continuous string of gains since prices were boosted by a homebuyer tax credit in 2009 and 2010.
New home sales for October, due on Wednesday, and October pending home sales data, due on Thursday, are also expected to show a stronger housing market.
Other data highlights next week include durable goods orders for October and consumer confidence for November on Tuesday and the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index on Friday.
At Friday’s close, the S&P 500 wrapped up its second-best week of the year with a 3.6 percent gain. Encouraging economic data next week could confirm that regardless of the ups and downs that the fiscal cliff could bring, the market’s fundamentals are solid.
Jeff Morris, head of U.S. equities at Standard Life Investments in Boston, said that “it’s kind of noise here” in terms of whether the market has spent “a few days up or down. It has made some solid gains over the course of the year as the housing recovery has come into view, and that’s what’s underpinning the market at these levels.
“I would caution against reading too much into the next few days.”
(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jan Paschal)
Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Beijing’s S. China Sea rivals protest passport map
Label: WorldTAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has enraged several neighbors with a few dashes on a map, printed in its newly revised passports that show it staking its claim on the entire South China Sea and even Taiwan.
Inside the passports, an outline of China printed in the upper left corner includes Taiwan and the sea, hemmed in by the dashes. The change highlights China’s longstanding claim on the South China Sea in its entirety, though parts of the waters also are claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.
China’s official maps have long included Taiwan and the South China Sea as Chinese territory, but the act of including them in its passports could be seen as a provocation since it would require other nations to tacitly endorse those claims by affixing their official seals to the documents.
Ruling party and opposition lawmakers alike condemned the map in Taiwan, a self-governed island that split from China after a civil war in 1949. They said it could harm the warming ties the historic rivals have enjoyed since Ma Ying-jeou became president 4 1/2 years ago.
“This is total ignorance of reality and only provokes disputes,” said Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the Cabinet-level body responsible for ties with Beijing. The council said the government cannot accept the map.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters in Manila that he sent a note to the Chinese Embassy that his country “strongly protests” the image. He said China’s claims include an area that is “clearly part of the Philippines’ territory and maritime domain.”
The Vietnamese government said it had also sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, demanding that Beijing remove the “erroneous content” printed in the passport.
In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said the new passport was issued based on international standards. China began issuing new versions of its passports to include electronic chips on May 15, though criticism cropped up only this week.
“The design of this type of passports is not directed against any particular country,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily media briefing Friday. “We hope the relevant countries can calmly treat it with rationality and restraint so that the normal visits by the Chinese and foreigners will not be unnecessarily interfered with.”
It’s unclear whether China’s South China Sea neighbors will respond in any way beyond protesting to Beijing. China, in a territorial dispute with India, once stapled visas into passports to avoid stamping them.
“Vietnam reserves the right to carry out necessary measures suitable to Vietnamese law, international law and practices toward such passports,” Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said.
Taiwan does not recognize China’s passports in any case; Chinese visitors to the island have special travel documents.
China maintains it has ancient claims to all of the South China Sea, despite much of it being within the exclusive economic zones of Southeast Asian neighbors. The islands and waters are potentially rich in oil and gas.
There are concerns that the disputes could escalate into violence. China and the Philippines had a tense maritime standoff at a shoal west of the main Philippine island of Luzon early this year.
The United States, which has said it takes no sides in the territorial spats but that it considers ensuring safe maritime traffic in the waters to be in its national interest, has backed a call for a “code of conduct” to prevent clashes in the disputed territories. But it remains unclear if and when China will sit down with rival claimants to draft such a legally binding nonaggression pact.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled to meet Dec. 12 to discuss claims in the South China Sea and the role of China.
___
Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam, and researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.
Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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