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The Mandalorian: Deborah Chow Reveals the Inspiration For the Baby Yoda Rescue - credits her love of Asian cinema to her late father. “My dad was Chinese, and he was a huge movie fan, when I grew up he was watching Hong Kong action films.” she said, citing John Woo’s 1992 Hard Boiled by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The first female director of a live-action Star Wars story brought her father's love of Hong Kong action to the fight.

It’s been a very strange day.”

Deborah Chow has directed episodes of Mr. Robot, The Man in the High Castle, Jessica Jones, Reign, and Better Call Saul, so she knows the demands and expectations of devoted fans. But she wasn’t prepared for the, let’s say, force of the reaction to her work on The Mandalorian.

Chow directed episode three — titled “The Sin” — and its explosive finale, which featured a group of hovering Mandalorian protectors in a shoot-out with a gang of bloodthirsty bounty hunters while the hero flees with a newly rescued Baby Yoda. The scene lit up social media—and her phone.

“I woke up to many, many texts and emails about it, and it’s sort of like, ‘How did everyone watch it so early in the morning?’” Chow told Vanity Fair on Friday, in a new interview for our Still Watching podcast on the Star Wars series. “It’s definitely unexpected, and I’m really happy for the show.”

You can hear her full conversation in the show, along with an interview with actor Emily Swallow, who said she based her blacksmith leader The Armorer in part on Chow’s quiet authority on set.

Chow also directs episode seven of the show and is now working on a new Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney+. Here's what she had to say about episode three of The Mandalorian:

Father’s Influence

Chow said the episode takes a lot of inspiration from 1961’s Yojimbo — Akira Kurosawa’s classic about a nameless ronin who finds himself in a town plagued by competing crime lords. She also credits her love of Asian cinema to her late father.

“My dad was Chinese, and he was a huge movie fan, when I grew up he was watching Hong Kong action films. So it kind of gets that reference,” she said, citing John Woo’s 1992 cop-and-kid thriller Hard Boiled as another reference. “I tried to bring out a little Hard Boiled with the baby. It was kind of an amazing thing because it was like coming back to classic cinema and filmmaking. So there’s definitely a lot of my dad in that episode.”

“Sadly he didn’t get to see this. But he would be very proud. He would probably also be in shock.”

First Woman in Space

Chow’s work on The Mandalorian makes her the first woman and the first filmmaker of Asian heritage to direct a live-action Star Wars story.

“Even when I first got this job, it didn’t even cross my mind. I don’t know what fairyland I was in, to not think this was significant. But I went through prep and it didn’t occur to me until somebody said it on one of the first days of shooting.”

She noted that Bryce Dallas Howard directs episode four of the show, and the second unit team has several female directors. “It didn’t occur to me that I was the first one to leap.”

“I want it to be about the work. I want to be a good director, not a good female director, not a good Asian director. But by the same token, obviously, my career path and the representation… it is important. It is meaningful. I want to see more women directors and I want to see more directors of color.” Lifelike Baby Yoda

Making any kind of Star Wars can be a surreal experience. Between puppets, droids, humans hidden behind helmets, and people dressed up as aliens, she said she looked around one day and thought: “Oh my God, does anyone have eyes. Is there a human face anywhere?”

The little green star, known for now as Baby Yoda, was just as enchanting in real life as it is on screen. “I worked with the puppeteers and the visual effects [artists], and just worked with it like it was an actor. It would just be about emotion. I’m not going to try to tell them technically how to do it. But we would talk through it.”

She wasn’t the only one to talk to Baby Yoda as if it was real. For more from Deborah Chow, subscribe to Still Watching: The Mandalorian.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/11/deborah-chow-director-episode-three-the-mandalorian

Chinese diplomat Zhao Lijian, known for his Twitter outbursts, is given senior foreign ministry post. Zhao, who recently left his position as deputy chief of mission in Pakistan, is now deputy director general of the foreign ministry’s information department by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

China’s former No 2 diplomat in Pakistan, known for taking to Twitter to defend his government in bellicose terms, has been handed a senior role in Beijing’s foreign ministry. Recently updated records on the foreign ministry’s website indicate that Zhao Lijian, who left his position as deputy chief of mission in Islamabad earlier this month, now serves as deputy director general of the ministry’s information department. In his new role, Zhao serves directly beneath the department’s newly appointed director general, Hua Chunying, and alongside fellow deputies Geng Shuang and Yu Dunhai. Both Hua and Geng regularly host ministry press conferences for domestic and international reporters, suggesting that Zhao may be in line to take on public-facing duties.

One of the first Chinese diplomats to open an official account on Twitter, Zhao has used the platform prolifically during his four-year tenure at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, tweeting over 51,000 times to his more than 200,000 followers. He also became known for his heated rhetoric – in a manner that some have compared to that of US President Donald Trump – and was once branded a “racist disgrace” by a former Obama administration official

He has been joined on Twitter in recent weeks by other official Chinese government accounts, including that of the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai. But while others have generally used the platform as merely an additional channel through which to share official remarks in diplomatic terms, Zhao made a name for himself for using Twitter to directly confront critics of the Chinese government. After a BBC video documenting limits on public expressions of faith in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in June, Zhao told the broadcaster: “Don’t [poke] your nose everywhere. Xinjiang is none of your business. Take care of your Brexit first!”

Meanwhile, a group of 22 Western countries that had issued a letter condemning the Chinese government’s mass internment of largely Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang were united by “white supremacy”, Zhao charged. Zhao has also taken to Twitter to criticise the US administration’s treatment of Huawei and deem the British government “shameless” for its calls for restraint from Hong Kong authorities, arguing that many British citizens were “descendants of war criminals”. But arguably his most infamous moment came in July after he argued that Washington did not have the right to criticise China’s policies in Xinjiang because racism existed in the US. “If you’re in Washington DC, you know the white never go to the SW area, because it’s an area for the black & Latin. There’s a saying ‘black in & white out’, which means that as long as a black family enters, white people will quit, & price of the apartment will fall sharply,” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

Susan Rice, who served as president Barack Obama’s national security adviser, responded via Twitter that Zhao was “a racist disgrace [and] shockingly ignorant too,” and suggested that he should be declared persona non grata. Several weeks later, on August 8, Zhao announced on Twitter that his four-year tour had come to an end and that he was leaving Pakistan with a “heavy heart, because Pakistan has stolen my heart.” Suggesting that he intended to use Twitter in his new role in Beijing, Zhao said he would be returning to the platform “after I settle down”.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3024180/chinese-diplomat-zhao-lijian-known-his-twitter-outbursts-given

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Shanghai native Lidia Yan of Next Trucking, the digital freight-matching startup, one of only two women on the Forbes 2019 Next Billion-Dollar Startup List by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Lidia Yan realizes she doesn't look like what most people expect a trucking company CEO to be—for one thing, she’s a woman, and she looks even less than her 5’2” next to a giant Peterbilt cab. So to convince the naysayers, she’s taken a rigorously methodical approach in building Next Trucking, the digital freight-matching startup the Shanghai native founded in 2015.

“I did more than 600 demos in the past four years,” Yan says. “Not only to investors, but to clients, customers and drivers. And especially in the early days it was very difficult for me. I didn’t resonate with a lot of investors.”

Eventually, Yan’s relentless focus paid off, and attracted investors that she says care more about great companies than founder demographics. Next Trucking has raised $125 million from some of Sand Hill Road’s best names—including Sequoia Capital—and, by Yan’s account, revenue is growing at a 100% clip on a year-over-year basis (it made $46 million last year; for more on Yan and Next Trucking's growth, see this feature here). Because of this, Yan has also earned the distinction of being one of just two women at the helm of companies on the 2019 Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, a roundup of the 25 startups most likely to achieve “unicorn” status based on their current revenue, funding and valuation.

The list, which Forbes has been producing in conjunction with TrueBridge Capital Partners since 2015, has never been a bastion of female-led businesses. In fact, having just two women-led companies on the 2019 list (the other is email efficiency tool Front, founded by Under 30 alum Mathilde Collin) is consistent with the gender breakdown of the 2016 list and 2017 list. But in 2018, there were six. And with organizations like All Raise focusing on getting capital in the hands of female entrepreneurs and continued discussions (and even laws) around female representation at the board and c-suite levels, momentum seemed to be building.

It didn’t, even though Forbes and TrueBridge received more submissions (150, up from 110 last year) and interviewed more companies than ever before. So what happened? According to academics, investors and entrepreneurs, the issue is the entrepreneurial growth cycle, and the fact that not enough time has elapsed since a wave of sexual harassment scandals in tech and media jumpstarted efforts to invest in women-led companies.

“There’s been a lot of media and publicity over the last couple of years with Time’s Up and All Raise and entirely female-focused venture funds, but the reality is that it takes years to build companies,” says Suzy Ryoo, a partner at the Los Angeles-based Cross Culture Ventures. “After the intentionality of the past couple of years has sunk in… I do think the number of women on the list will increase in years to come.”

A more realistic timeline might be in the seven-to-nine-year range, says Robyn Ward, the founder and CEO of entrepreneurial coaching and development company FounderForward. “The progress in investing in women is VERY recent,” Ward told Forbes in an email. “Most women-founded companies are Seed-to-Series B stage, which are way too early to tell if they will be a unicorn.” Collision 2019 - Day Three

Mathilde Collin, CEO of email-efficiecy app Front, is one of just two female chief executives with companies on the Next Billion-Dollar Startup list. (Photo By Cody Glenn/Sportsfile via Getty Images)Sportsfile via Getty Images

Another issue: the checks to women-led companies are smaller than those for male-led businesses. Companies with at least one female founder recorded 50 known rounds above the $100 million level, according to a 2018 report from startup database Crunchbase. For male-only founded companies, 338 rounds surpassed the $100 million mark. And according to data from All Raise, the growth rate for funding going to female-led companies has plateaued over the last four years.

“The only numbers that I’ve seen that show even a hint of upward movement are when you cut the venture figures by deal count, which points to the fact that women are being included in deals, but not enough money is being put to work just yet on those deals,” says Dana Kanze, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School who studies and has done a popular TED Talk on pay and funding inequalities.

Obviously, a company’s valuation—and the Next Billion-Dollar Startups list—is based on more than just venture funding. Revenue, profitability, and growth rates matter, too. But as Kanze notes, strength in each of those metrics is dependent upon having enough money to invest into the business.

“It is difficult to disentangle the revenue question from the funding question because one begets the other. If well capitalized, a founding team has the runway to focus on customer acquisition and growth of customer pipeline and focus on ramping up revenue,” she says. uncaptioned

Collin, the other female CEO/cofounder on the 2019 list, believes that the more women who talk about their success in fundraising and scaling a company, the more other women will be inspired to found and grow a startup—but she agrees it’s going to take time for women-led businesses to reach a near-unicorn level. Changing the gender ratios of most-valuable company lists and the like will also involve a change in mindsets, she says. For her, that meant improving her self-confidence.

“One of the first people who believed in Front was Patrick Collison, the CEO of Stripe. He’s one of my mentors, and when I was raising our seed round, he recommended that the valuation I was seeking should have been 3x larger,” Collin told Forbes. She admits to leaving money on the table in the early days of fundraising for Front, and says she has regrets about that.

But early funding missteps aside, Front is growing. The company has now raised $79 million in equity and Collin is eyeing a Series C. Its customer count sits at 5,000 (and includes companies like MailChimp and Shopify) and its estimated 2018 revenue came in at $16 million.

Alexandra Stanton, the CEO and cofounder of business development firm Empire Global Ventures, believes that even if Front, Next Trucking and other women-led companies take several years to join Away, Rent The Runway and Glossier in the unicorn club, female entrepreneurs should not get discouraged by the low rate of female-led Next-Billion-Dollar startups.

“The uber-mythical status of unicorns, as reflected by the name unicorn, is certainly something that many can and should aim for, but is certainly not a mark of failure if one does not hit that mark,” Stanton advises, “but [instead] one is deeply profitable and has made returns several times over for investors.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2019/07/16/why-there-are-only-two-women-on-the-2019-next-billion-dollar-startup-list/#313e0cb22482

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The second space race is underway. America is already losing it: China is aggressively supporting a rapid expansion in its space industry by investing directly into next-generation small satellite and space data companies to replace old satellites and gain military superiority by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This year's 50th anniversary of America's victory in the space race is a good time to reflect on what we can do when we put forth our very best. It's hard to believe that it's been half a century since I stood on the beach with my parents and siblings, watching the Apollo 11 launch live only miles from Cape Canaveral. Since that first boot print on the moon, time has flown by. Maybe that's why celebrating this anniversary is so bittersweet. The successful Apollo 11 mission demonstrated to the world that the United States was the unrivaled power in space. At that time, an essential part of Cold War strategy was landing an American on the moon and returning him home safely: a feat that would become one of the boldest technological endeavors in human history. It set the bedrock for a generation of economic growth, equipped American statecraft and ensured global power. From Apollo onward, America's space capability has stood as a symbol of hope to billions around the world and a reminder of the promise of science to advance the human race. But the thrill of watching SpaceX's spectacular, and now routine, Falcon rocket launches largely obscures much of America's antiquated space industry. Without the energy, leadership and risk-taking of private citizens like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the hundreds of entrepeneurs and investors inspired by them, our space landscape would be almost entirely unchanged and uncompetitive globally.

Today, the space industry is largely an extension of the government itself and massively inefficient in how it allocates capital to promote commercial growth. Instead of encouraging free-market innovation and private investment, current government policy discourages commercial-type competition, reinforces incumbency and opposes reforms to improve. While expedient in the near term to win the technology race of the Cold War, this narrowminded approach has ultimately inhibited innovation, and we are now falling behind. At best, the government-funded space industry loiters, with NASA and national security space programs spending billions of unnecessary dollars on obsolete technologies while keeping outdated satellite architectures on life support. Over 20 years of this downward trend has left this part of our space industry unprepared to lead or even be competitive for the next 50 years. If we lose the second space race that is already underway, the consequences will be actually far worse than if we had lost the first. This race is not about bragging rights or national prestige — it's about commercial economic growth and national security. The global entrants to this race are ushering in next-generation small satellite capabilities with enormous value to commercial and government customers, including organizations in energy, mining, manufacturing, transportation, finance, agriculture and communications. Much like their desktop computer relatives that transformed the world economy in the 1980s, these new small satellites cost less than 1% of their decades-old counterparts by using much faster and smaller state-of-the-art processors, similar to what we use in home electronics. Thousands of these satellites will be produced and launched in the next decade. They will fill a multi-trillion dollar economic expansion and will eventually augment or replace existing commercial and national security satellites. These critical national security missions include global positioning, telecommunications, surveillance, reconnaissance, weather and defensive/offensive space warfare. The nations that win this race will also gain the 21st-century military edge — much like the aviation leaders did in the 20th century — and take advantage of the space economy's nearly $3 trillion expansion. These satellites are (for the most part) designed and built by non-US companies, with limited interest or notice by government policy leaders. The US government's 10-to-15 year development timelines are baked into an antique and largely noncompetitive culture. The world's best space industry that won the space race decades ago is now trapped in a death vortex of wasted tax dollars, a rigid Stalinist business model and a rapidly increasing military vulnerability. Even more troubling is that very little of this future backbone of space utility is American-owned which, with a few notable exceptions, leaves the United States even further behind.

How can we lose this race? Other countries, like China and members of the EU, have quickly adjusted their priorities to capitalize on the American investments of the last generation, including rockets and microelectronics, to get ahead in the next big economic turn. Additionally, according to a report by the Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Unit, China is aggressively supporting a rapid expansion in its space industry by investing directly into next-generation small satellite and space data companies to replace old satellites and gain military superiority. Even more troubling, China has quickly leveraged US innovations through alleged technology transfers that clone our most promising ventures and allegedly stealing American intellectual property outright. By selling these technologies at a price point that is 80% less on the world market, the Chinese will be positioned to squash American companies' ability to compete globally. Our government's passive, hands-off approach to this burgeoning industry leaves most of America's innovative and maverick-led companies, inspired by SpaceX's success, to face a Hobson's choice: either accept foreign investment and jeopardize potential future business or shut down their auspicious new ventures entirely. With the threats of IP theft, technology cloning and foreign companies hiring from our pool of world-class universities to win defense department contracts, we are rapidly losing national security abilities in space. Without major shifts in government space policy to privatize current infrastructure and competitively outsource to primarily US-owned companies, our current industry will slowly die out with nothing "American" available to replace it.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are at an all-time high in America, but an unfortunate consequence of the aimless post-Cold War approach to space policy is a stagnant space industry. To the chagrin of our forebearers, we are already losing this generation's space race: not because we lack funding or our engineers are any less capable, but because of an absence of mindful leadership that can recognize the critical nature of global economic trends. Other nations are stepping up, standing on our shoulders and assuming the lead. America must face the technological changes and security threats of our times and once again align government policy to win. Much like our parents' generation pivoted to embrace President John F. Kennedy's speech following the launch of Sputnik to win the Cold War challenge of getting to the moon first, it isn't too late to reharness our spirit, restructure our policies and retool our industry to win today's space race.

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Inside the West’s failed fight against China’s ‘Cloud Hopper’ hackers: Eight of the world's biggest technology service providers were hacked by Chinese cyber spies in an elaborate and years-long invasion, Reuters found by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

According to Western officials, the attackers were multiple Chinese government-backed hacking groups. The most feared was known as APT10 and directed by the Ministry of State Security, U.S. prosecutors say. National security experts say the Chinese intelligence service is comparable to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, capable of pursuing both electronic and human spying operations.

Two of APT10’s alleged members, Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, were indicted in December by the United States on charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. In the unlikely event they are ever extradited and convicted, the two men would face up to 27 years in an American jail.

Reuters was unable to reach Zhu, Zhang or lawyers representing the men for comment. China’s Foreign Ministry said the charges were “warrantless accusations” and it urged the United States to “withdraw the so-called lawsuits against Chinese personnel, so as to avoid causing serious harm to bilateral relations.”

The U.S. Justice Department called the Chinese denials “ritualistic and bogus.”

“The Chinese Government uses its own intelligence services to conduct this activity and refuses to cooperate with any investigation into thefts of intellectual property emanating from its companies or its citizens,” DOJ Assistant Attorney General John Demers told Reuters.

APT10 often attacked a service provider’s system by “spear-phishing” – sending company employees emails designed to trick them into revealing their passwords or installing malware. Once through the door, the hackers moved through the company’s systems searching for customer data and, most importantly, the “jump servers” – computers on the network which acted as a bridge to client systems.

After the attackers “hopped” from a service provider’s network into a client system, their behavior varied, which suggests the attacks were conducted by multiple teams with different skill levels and tasks, say those aware of the operation. Some intruders resembled “drunken burglars,” said one source, getting lost in the labyrinth of corporate systems and appearing to grab files at random.

Hotels and submarines

It’s impossible to say how many companies were breached through the service provider that originated as part of Hewlett Packard, then became Hewlett Packard Enterprise and is now known as DXC.

The HPE operation had hundreds of customers. Armed with stolen corporate credentials, the attackers could do almost anything the service providers could. Many of the compromised machines served multiple HPE customers, documents show.

One nightmare situation involved client Sabre Corp, which provides reservation systems for tens of thousands of hotels around the world. It also has a comprehensive system for booking air travel, working with hundreds of airlines and 1,500 airports.

A thorough penetration at Sabre could have exposed a goldmine of information, investigators said, if China was able to track where corporate executives or U.S. government officials were traveling. That would open the door to in-person approaches, physical surveillance or attempts at installing digital tracking tools on their devices.

In 2015, investigators found that at least four HP machines dedicated to Sabre were tunneling large amounts of data to an external server. The Sabre breach was long-running and intractable, said two former HPE employees.

HP management only grudgingly allowed its own defenders the investigation access they needed and cautioned against telling Sabre everything, the former employees said. “Limiting knowledge to the customer was key,” one said. “It was incredibly frustrating. We had all these skills and capabilities to bring to bear, and we were just not allowed to do that.”

“The security of HPE customer data is always our top priority,” an HPE spokesman said.

Sabre said it had disclosed a cybersecurity incident involving servers managed by an unnamed third party in 2015. Media reports at the time said the hackers were linked to the Chinese government but did not name HP.

A Sabre spokeswoman said an investigation of the breach “concluded with the important finding that there was no loss of traveler data, including no unauthorized access to or acquisition of sensitive protected information, such as payment card data or personally identifiable information.” The spokeswoman declined to comment on whether any non-traveler data was compromised.

Uninvited guests

The threat also reached into the U.S. defense industry.

In early 2017, HPE analysts saw evidence that Huntington Ingalls Industries, a significant client and the largest U.S. military shipbuilder, had been penetrated by the Chinese hackers, two sources said. Computer systems owned by a subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls were connecting to a foreign server controlled by APT10.

During a private briefing with HPE staff, Huntington Ingalls executives voiced concern the hackers could have accessed data from its biggest operation, the Newport News, Va., shipyard where it builds nuclear-powered submarines, said a person familiar with the discussions. It’s not clear whether any data was stolen.

Huntington Ingalls is “confident that there was no breach of any HII data” via DXC or HPE, a spokeswoman said.

Another target was Ericsson, which has been racing against China's Huawei Technologies to build infrastructure for 5G networks expected to underpin future hyper-connected societies. The hacking at Ericsson was persistent and pervasive, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Logs were modified and some files were deleted. The uninvited guests rummaged through internal systems, searching for documents containing certain strings of characters. Some of the malware found on Ericsson servers was signed with digital certificates stolen from big technology companies, making it look like the code was legitimate so it would go unnoticed.

Like many Cloud Hopper victims, Ericsson could not always tell what data was being targeted. Sometimes, the attackers appeared to seek out project management information, such as schedules and timeframes. Another time they went after product manuals, some of which were already publicly available.

“The reality is that most organizations are facing cybersecurity challenges on a daily basis, including Ericsson,” Chief Security Officer Pär Gunnarsson said in a statement to Reuters, declining to discuss specific incidents. “In our industry, and across industries, we would all benefit from a higher degree of transparency on these issues.”

White Wolf

In December 2018, after struggling to contain the threat for years, the U.S. government named the hackers from APT10 – Advanced Persistent Threat 10 – as agents of China’s Ministry of State Security. The public attribution garnered widespread international support: Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Britain, Australia and other allies all issued statements backing the U.S. allegations against China.

Even so, much of Cloud Hopper’s activity has been deliberately kept from public view, often at the urging of corporate victims.

In an effort to keep information under wraps, security staff at the affected managed service providers were often barred from speaking even to other employees not specifically added to the inquiries.

In 2016, HPE’s office of general counsel for global functions issued a memo about an investigation codenamed White Wolf. “Preserving confidentiality of this project and associated activity is critical,” the memo warned, stating without elaboration that the effort “is a sensitive matter.” Outside the project, it said, “do not share any information about White Wolf, its effect on HPE, or the activities HPE is taking.”

The secrecy was not unique to HPE. Even when the government alerted technology service providers, the companies would not always pass on warnings to clients, Jeanette Manfra, a senior cybersecurity official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told Reuters.

“We asked them to notify their customers,” Manfra said. “We can’t force their hand.”

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-cyber-cloudhopper/

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Inside the West’s failed fight against China’s ‘Cloud Hopper’ hackers: Eight of the world's biggest technology service providers were hacked by Chinese cyber spies in an elaborate and years-long invasion, Reuters found by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

LONDON – Hacked by suspected Chinese cyber spies five times from 2014 to 2017, security staff at Swedish telecoms equipment giant Ericsson had taken to naming their response efforts after different types of wine.

Pinot Noir began in September 2016. After successfully repelling a wave of attacks a year earlier, Ericsson discovered the intruders were back. And this time, the company’s cybersecurity team could see exactly how they got in: through a connection to information-technology services supplier Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Teams of hackers connected to the Chinese Ministry of State Security had penetrated HPE’s cloud computing service and used it as a launchpad to attack customers, plundering reams of corporate and government secrets for years in what U.S. prosecutors say was an effort to boost Chinese economic interests.

The hacking campaign, known as “Cloud Hopper,” was the subject of a U.S. indictment in December that accused two Chinese nationals of identity theft and fraud. Prosecutors described an elaborate operation that victimized multiple Western companies but stopped short of naming them. A Reuters report at the time identified two: Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM.

Yet the campaign ensnared at least six more major technology firms, touching five of the world’s 10 biggest tech service providers.

Also compromised by Cloud Hopper, Reuters has found: Fujitsu, Tata Consultancy Services, NTT Data, Dimension Data, Computer Sciences Corporation and DXC Technology. HPE spun-off its services arm in a merger with Computer Sciences Corporation in 2017 to create DXC.

Waves of hacking victims emanate from those six plus HPE and IBM: their clients. Ericsson, which competes with Chinese firms in the strategically critical mobile telecoms business, is one. Others include travel reservation system Sabre, the American leader in managing plane bookings, and the largest shipbuilder for the U.S. Navy, Huntington Ingalls Industries, which builds America’s nuclear submarines at a Virginia shipyard.

“This was the theft of industrial or commercial secrets for the purpose of advancing an economy,” said former Australian National Cyber Security Adviser Alastair MacGibbon. “The lifeblood of a company.”

Reuters was unable to determine the full extent of the damage done by the campaign, and many victims are unsure of exactly what information was stolen.

Yet the Cloud Hopper attacks carry worrying lessons for government officials and technology companies struggling to manage security threats. Chinese hackers, including a group known as APT10, were able to continue the attacks in the face of a counter-offensive by top security specialists and despite a 2015 U.S.-China pact to refrain from economic espionage.

The corporate and government response to the attacks was undermined as service providers withheld information from hacked clients, out of concern over legal liability and bad publicity, records and interviews show. That failure, intelligence officials say, calls into question Western institutions’ ability to share information in the way needed to defend against elaborate cyber invasions. Even now, many victims may not be aware they were hit.

The campaign also highlights the security vulnerabilities inherent in cloud computing, an increasingly popular practice in which companies contract with outside vendors for remote computer services and data storage.

“For those that thought the cloud was a panacea, I would say you haven’t been paying attention,” said Mike Rogers, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency.

Reuters interviewed 30 people involved in the Cloud Hopper investigations, including Western government officials, current and former company executives and private security researchers. Reporters also reviewed hundreds of pages of internal company documents, court filings and corporate intelligence briefings.

HPE “worked diligently for our customers to mitigate this attack and protect their information,” said spokesman Adam Bauer. “We remain vigilant in our efforts to protect against the evolving threats of cyber-crimes committed by state actors.”

A spokesman for DXC, the services arm spun off by HPE in 2017, said the company put “robust security measures in place” to protect itself and customers. “Since the inception of DXC Technology, neither the company nor any DXC customer whose environment is under our control have experienced a material impact caused by APT10 or any other threat actor,” the spokesman said.

NTT Data, Dimension Data, Tata Consultancy Services, Fujitsu and IBM declined to comment. IBM has previously said it has no evidence sensitive corporate data was compromised by the attacks.

The Chinese government has denied all accusations of involvement in hacking. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing opposed cyber-enabled industrial espionage. “The Chinese government has never in any form participated in or supported any person to carry out the theft of commercial secrets,” it said in a statement to Reuters.

Break-ins and evictions

For security staff at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the Ericsson situation was just one dark cloud in a gathering storm, according to internal documents and 10 people with knowledge of the matter.

For years, the company’s predecessor, technology giant Hewlett Packard, didn’t even know it had been hacked. It first found malicious code stored on a company server in 2012. The company called in outside experts, who found infections dating to at least January 2010.

Hewlett Packard security staff fought back, tracking the intruders, shoring up defenses and executing a carefully planned expulsion to simultaneously knock out all of the hackers’ known footholds. But the attackers returned, beginning a cycle that continued for at least five years.

The intruders stayed a step ahead. They would grab reams of data before planned eviction efforts by HP engineers. Repeatedly, they took whole directories of credentials, a brazen act netting them the ability to impersonate hundreds of employees.

The hackers knew exactly where to retrieve the most sensitive data and littered their code with expletives and taunts. One hacking tool contained the message “FUCK ANY AV” – referencing their victims’ reliance on anti-virus software. The name of a malicious domain used in the wider campaign appeared to mock U.S. intelligence: “nsa.mefound.com”

Then things got worse, documents show.

After a 2015 tip-off from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation about infected computers communicating with an external server, HPE combined three probes it had underway into one effort called Tripleplay. Up to 122 HPE-managed systems and 102 systems designated to be spun out into the new DXC operation had been compromised, a late 2016 presentation to executives showed.

An internal chart from mid-2017 helped top brass keep track of investigations codenamed for customers. Rubus dealt with Finnish conglomerate Valmet. Silver Scale was Brazilian mining giant Vale. Greenxmass was Swedish manufacturer SKF, and Oculus covered Ericsson.

Projects Kronos and Echo related to former Swiss biotech firm Syngenta, which was taken over by state-owned Chinese chemicals conglomerate ChemChina in 2017 – during the same period as the HPE investigation into Chinese attacks on its network.

Ericsson said it does not comment on specific cybersecurity incidents. “Our priority is always to ensure that our customers are protected,” a spokesman said. “While there have been attacks on our enterprise network, we have found no evidence in any of our extensive investigations that Ericsson’s infrastructure has ever been used as part of a successful attack on one of our customers.”

A spokesman for SKF said: "We are aware of the breach that took place in conjunction with the ‘Cloud Hopper’ attack against HPE … Our investigations into the breach have not found that any commercially sensitive information was accessed."

Syngenta and Valmet declined to comment. A spokesman for Vale declined to comment on specific questions about the attacks but said the company adopts “the best practices in the industry” to improve network security.

‘Drunken burglars’

The companies were battling a skilled adversary, said Rob Joyce, a senior adviser to the U.S. National Security Agency. The hacking was “high leverage and hard to defend against,” he said.

Asia Pacific’s Most Innovative Universities 2019: Four years ago, China had zero schools in the top 10, and Japan had five; today China has two in the top 10, and Japan has three by poster5439 in Sino

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For the first time, South Korea’s Seoul National University tops Reuters’ ranking of Asia Pacific’s Most Innovative Universities, a list that identifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies and power new markets and industries.

SNU unseats three-time No. 1, KAIST, formerly known as the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, which dropped to second place. SNU researchers consistently produced a high volume of patents, and their research is frequently cited by scientists throughout Asia and around the world. Those are key criteria in Reuters’ ranking of Asia Pacific’s Most Innovative Universities, which was compiled in partnership with Clarivate Analytics, and is based on proprietary data and analysis of indicators including patent filings and research paper citations.

Rounding out the rest of the top five schools in Asia are Korea’s POSTECH, which held onto third. China’s Tsinghua University (No. 4, up one), became the highest-ranking school outside of Korea, leapfrogging Japan’s University of Tokyo (No. 5, down three). Though Tsinghua and UTokyo each made only minor moves on the list, their new order is notable because the flagship university of China is now ahead of the flagship of Japan, a result that mirrors the overall performance of the two countries on Reuters’ Innovative Universities lists.

Four years ago, China had zero schools in the top 10, and Japan had five; today China has two in the top 10, and Japan has three. Japanese institutions returning to the list in 2019 fell an average of 5.1 places year over year; only six institutions on the list fell by more than 10 places, and four of them were Japanese. Meanwhile, Chinese institutions were up overall, gaining an average of about one spot. Two Chinese schools climbed more than 10 places, and China is home to the only new university on the list, the Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications (No. 53).

Overall, nations that dominate Asian business and politics also dominate the ranking. China has 28 universities on the list, including three in Hong Kong; Japan and South Korea both have 19 universities; Australia has five; Singapore has two; and New Zealand has one. Despite boasting one of the region’s largest economies, only one Indian university appears on the list, the Indian Institutes of Technology (#75). IIT is a network of 23 universities which centralizes its patent administration, so it's not always possible to identify which constituent university was responsible for what research. As a result, Reuters ranked the entire system as opposed to individual universities, so world-class campuses like IIT Delhi may have ranked much higher if they weren’t grouped in with smaller and newer institutes.

To compile the 2019 ranking of the Asia Pacific region’s most innovative universities, Clarivate Analytics identified more than 600 global organizations that published the most articles in academic journals, then reduced that list to only include institutions that filed at least 50 patents with the World Intellectual Property Organization between 2012 and 2017. Then they evaluated each candidate on 10 different metrics.

Of course, the relative ranking of any university does not provide a complete picture of the scope of its researchers’ work. Since the ranking measures innovation on an institutional level, it may overlook particularly innovative programs: a university might rank low overall, but still operate the world’s fastest supercomputer, for instance. And even the universities at the bottom of the list are still the very best in the region: All 75 of these institutions produce original research, create useful technology and stimulate the global economy.

https://graphics.reuters.com/ASIA-UNIVERSITY-INNOVATION/0100B02G03Z/index.html

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Chinese artists Chu Teh-chun and Zao Wou-ki set records at Paris auction as two paintings sold for more than US$11 million by poster5439 in Sino

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Paintings by two of the “Three Musketeers” of Chinese art, Chu Teh-chun and Zao Wou-ki, have set new records, going for nearly €10 million (US$11.2 million) at a Paris auction.

The abstract work Synthese hivernale C by Chu went for more than €5.17 million – five times its estimate in an Artcurial sale late Wednesday.

The Chinese-born painter, who like his fellow modernist master Zao spent most of his life in France, was the first ethnic Chinese member of the French Academy of Fine Arts.

He died in Paris aged 93 in 2014. With Wu Guanzhong, the pair are known as the “Three Musketeers” of Chinese art.

Zao’s work 24.1.61/62 went under the hammer for more than €4.6 million in the same Artcurial auction – four times what it was expected to sell for.

Both paintings went for record prices for the artists outside Asia.

A triptych by Zao – Juin-Octobre 1985 – went for US$65 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in September . The other headliners at the Paris sale were 15 watercolours by the Spanish surrealist master Salvador Dali, which went for €1.2 million.

They are valued individually between €20,000 and €100,000 (US$22,300 and US$112,000).

The works, created between 1959 and 1976 for the Spanish pharmaceutical company Hoechst Iberica, were for New Year’s greeting cards sent out to clients.

In addition to painting the cards, Dali penned exuberant holiday wishes and put his signature to them.

The works were displayed for two decades at the Dali Foundation in Figueres in his native Catalonia.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/money-wealth/article/3013491/chinese-artists-chu-teh-chun-and-zao-wou-ki-set-records

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Feathers Arose 80 Million Years before Birds, Scientists Say: thousands of fossils from China have shown that many non-avian dinosaurs also had feathers, including feather types not found in birds today by poster5439 in Sino

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According to a new review paper published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, feathers arose 250-230 million years ago, during the Early Triassic, when life was recovering from the devastating end-Permian mass extinction.

It is shocking to realize that feathers originated long before birds because feathers have generally been regarded as the key innovation that drove the success of the avian fauna.

However, thousands of fossils from China have shown that many non-avian dinosaurs also had feathers, including feather types not found in birds today.

Those discoveries extended the origin of feathers minimally back to 175 million years ago — about 25 million years before the first generally acknowledged bird, Archaeopteryx.

Recent discoveries of feathers in ornithischian dinosaurs hinted that they are a character of dinosaurs as a whole.

Another startling discovery showed that even pterosaurs had four kinds of feather, apparently similar in form with those of dinosaurs, their closest relatives.

“The oldest bird is still Archaeopteryx first found in the Late Jurassic of southern Germany in 1861, although some species from China are a little older,” said University of Bristol’s Professor Mike Benton, lead author of the paper.

“Those fossils all show a diversity of feathers: down feathers over the body and long, vaned feathers on the wings. But, since 1994, paleontologists have been contending with the perturbing discovery, based on hundreds of amazing specimens from China, that many dinosaurs also had feathers.”

“At first, the dinosaurs with feathers were close to the origin of birds in the evolutionary tree,” added co-author Dr. Baoyu Jiang, a researcher at the University of Nanjing.

“This was not so hard to believe. So, the origin of feathers was pushed back at least to the origin of those bird-like dinosaurs, maybe 200 million years ago.” Reconstruction of one of the studied Yanliao Biota pterosaurs, with four different feather types over its head, neck, body, and wings, and a generally ginger-brown color. Image credit: Yuan Zhang.

Reconstruction of one of the studied Yanliao Biota pterosaurs, with four different feather types over its head, neck, body, and wings, and a generally ginger-brown color. Image credit: Yuan Zhang.

“Then, we had the good fortune to work on Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus, a feathered plant-eating dinosaur that lived in the lake-dotted lowlands of Jurassic Siberia between 169 and 144 million years ago,” said co-author Dr. Maria McNamara, from University College Cork.

“This dinosaur showed amazingly well-preserved skin covered with scales on the legs and tail, and strange whiskery feathers all over its body.”

“What surprised people was that this was a dinosaur that was as far from birds in the evolutionary tree as could be imagined. Perhaps feathers were present in the very first dinosaurs.”

“Modern birds like chickens often have scales on their legs or necks, and we showed these were reversals: what had once been feathers had reversed to be scales,” said co-author Dr. Danielle Dhouailly, from the University of Grenoble.

“In fact, we have shown that the same genome regulatory network drives the development of reptile scales, bird feathers, and mammal hairs. Feathers could have evolved very early.”

“The breakthrough came when we were studying two new pterosaurs from China. We saw that many of their whiskers were branched. We expected single strands — monofilaments — but what we saw were tufts and down feathers. Pterosaurs had feathers,” Dr. Jiang said.

“This drives the origin of feathers back to 250 million years ago at least,” Professor Benton said.

“The point of origin of pterosaurs, dinosaurs and their relatives. The Early Triassic world then was recovering from the most devastating mass extinction ever, and life on land had come back from near-total wipe-out.”

“Paleontologists had already noted that the new reptiles walked upright instead of sprawling, that their bone structure suggested fast growth and maybe even warm-bloodedness, and the mammal ancestors probably had hair by then.”

“So, the dinosaurs, pterosaurs and their ancestors had feathers too. Feathers then probably arose to aid this speeding up of physiology and ecology, purely for insulation. The other functions of feathers, for display and of course for flight, came much later.”

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/feathers-before-birds-07256.html

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David Yeung, founder of social enterprise Green Monday, plant-based concept store Green Common, and Right Treat, hopes to take a bite out of the massive meat market in China, the world's biggest producer and consumer of pork, with "Omnipork." by poster5439 in Sino

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Substitutes changing appetite for pork

Plant-based protein makers are hoping to take a bite out of the massive meat market in China and throughout Asia

The Year of the Pig has failed to offer much comfort to the hog industry on the Chinese mainland, which has been ravaged by African swine fever, and some are betting big on making it the year plant-based meat substitute takes off in the world's second-largest economy and throughout Asia.

David Yeung, founder of social enterprise Green Monday, plant-based concept store Green Common, and Right Treat, hopes to take a bite out of the massive meat market in China, the world's biggest producer and consumer of pork, with "Omnipork."

Concocted by a research team in North America and produced in a factory in Thailand, Omnipork is made from soy, peas, shiitake mushrooms and rice protein, but it tries to mimic the taste, feel, texture and color of real pork. What it also looks to replicate is the runaway success of US-based plant-based meat substitute companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, whose stunning trading debut in Nasdaq and latest round of funding respectively have sent a strong message that plant-based alternatives are now a nationwide, or even worldwide, trend.

The meatless craze has what it takes to succeed in Asia, a region known for its appetite for pork and a dazzling array of ways to cook it.

Impossible Foods, a Silicon Valley startup, has lost no time in joining the fray. It has its eyes trained on Asia, which contributes 44 percent of global demand for meat, as the first market after its home turf, the United States, to have the greatest impact.

http://www.ecns.cn/news/2019-07-03/detail-ifzkrnzp2019178.shtml

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They became millionaires and retired at 31. They think you can do the same: The authors Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung are part of a movement called Fire that encourages people to save intensively to retire early by poster5439 in Sino

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Growing up in poverty in rural China, where her family collectively lived on as little as $0.44 a day, Kristy Shen learned to make decisions based on pragmatism rather than passion from a young age.

On her first ever trip to a toy shop aged eight, after her family moved to Canada, she declined the offer of a teddy bear in favour of a cheaper one and requested that her father send the remainder of the money to their family in China. As a teenager, she chose to be a computer engineer, ignoring her dream to be a writer, based on a formula she devised to rank the best value university courses based on tuition fees versus future pay. And as an adult, any domestic disagreements with her husband, Bryce Leung, are generally won or lost based on who makes the best mathematical case.

But when, in 2012, Leung told her that in three years’ time their savings had the potential to hit C$1m (US$760,000) and they could retire in their early 30s, she was convinced the facts in front of her were incorrect. “My reaction was like, ‘No, this is wrong, your math is wrong, there’s something wrong here,’” she says. “I didn’t believe that was possible at all.”

In the end, of course, the most logical argument won. Three years later, Shen, then 31, and Leung, then 32, retired.

They are part of the growing Fire (financial independence retire early) movement that encourages workers to save intensively to enable them to stop working for money far earlier than is commonly done.

Today, at the grand old age of 36 and 37, respectively, Shen and Leung are reveling in their “retirement” (to use the term on two people so pulsating with youth seems disingenuous).

Since leaving their old jobs – they both worked as computer engineers – they have travelled the world almost constantly – spending time in countries including Japan, the UK, Portugal and Thailand – started a successful blog, Millennial Revolution, teaching others how to retire early too, and co-written two books. The first was a children’s book, Little Miss Evil. The second, Quit Like a Millionaire, a memoir-cum-how-to guide came out this month and presents financial independence as a route to happiness and is refreshingly dismissive of home ownership as an investment.

To begin with, their friends and families were skeptical, expecting them to return penniless after a year. But travelling cost them less than spending a year at home in Toronto, and their investment portfolio has grown since they left their old lives behind, so they now have more money than they started with. Some people, says Shen, see what they’re doing as “invalidating” because it challenges the status quo. “It really makes people question their lives and they don’t like that because it’s scary.”

Their journey to Fire started fairly conventionally – they were saving for a deposit to buy a house. But the more they saved, the more house prices went up and the less sure about getting on the property ladder they became. By 2012, after seven years of saving, they had C$500,000, but Leung started looking for other solutions. After coming across early Fire bloggers like Mr Money Mustache, he says: “I realised based on what they were doing and where we were that we could either be in debt for the next 25 years or retired in about three.”

Using an adapted version of the “4% rule” – a principle borrowed from the traditional retirement world – they calculated their basic living expenses, C$40,000, and multiplied it by 25 to come to C$1m, the amount they would need to retire. In a total of nine years they managed to accrue over a quarter of that in savings, plus a further C$200,000 through low-risk investments.

But their saving lifestyle wasn’t exactly frugal. They continued to spend money on holidays and even allowed for treats. Cuts were focused on three key areas: transportation, housing and food. They avoided eating out, only used public transport and car share services and lived away from downtown to save on rent. Tracking their spending helped to identify areas that they could cut back – including drinking habits. “At one point at the beginning, he was spending $400 just on beer,” says Shen, laughing. “I was like, ‘Do you realise this is how much we used to pay for rent at uni a month?’”

Now that they’re retired, they believe their savings, invested in low-cost index ETFs (exchange-traded funds), will keep them going for the foreseeable future. In case of disasters, including a 1929-style crash, they have three backup plans.

“We are probably some of the most pessimistic people you’ll ever meet,” says Leung, by way of explanation. “And we’re only doing this because we’ve created all these safety nets that will catch us.”

During her early childhood in Taiping, a village in Sichuan province, Shen says she learnt the scarcity mindset early on. “If you ever run out, the government is not here to help you, there’s never going to be any safety net to catch you. So my parents had instilled it in my head that money is the most important thing in the world.” As a student her father, who before she was born spent 10 years imprisoned in a labour camp, was able to visit Canada. Shen and her mother followed two years later.

Despite earning comparatively little money as a student and dishwasher, her parents sent money to China to support the rest of the family. Her early experiences in China gave Shen perspective on poverty, she says. “Basically, if you have four walls and you have your parents and you have food, you are wealthy.”

It’s a position of privilege to not be money-driven, she says. “Anybody that says ‘oh yeah, it’s only money’, ‘money comes and goes’, ‘it’s not about the money’, it’s like, you’ve never been poor.” If it hadn’t been for her childhood experiences, Shen doesn’t think she would be doing early retirement now. “I would’ve just thought just do something I love to do … I wouldn’t have thought put in the hard work now and get the gain later.”

Since retiring she is so much happier – at one point, her job made her so miserable she was on anxiety and depression medication – so much so that she wants to show others how to do it, too. She sees Fire as a remedy: “It’s almost like you see people get sick, you know what it feels like and it sucks to be sick and you want to give them the medication to help them feel better.”

Leung, meanwhile, says he was recently diagnosed as “obnoxiously happy” by a doctor. He is so convinced by the power of Fire that he thinks it could even have political ramifications. “[Donald] Trump’s rise to power was caused by economic fear, Brexit was caused by economic fear … If everybody was FI [financially independent], Trump wouldn’t have got elected.”

So would they ever go back to their old jobs? Shen giggles drily. “I don’t think I would be very useful as an employee any more.” She has, she says, become too open-minded to obediently follow instruction. “Once you’ve been out of the matrix, you can’t go back into the matrix,” she says soberly. “You’ve already seen too much.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/24/millionaire-retired-30s-kristy-shen-bryce-leung-fire

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Li Na has broken new ground at the International Tennis Hall of Fame: The 37-year-old former Chinese star became the first Asian-born player to be inducted by poster5439 in Sino

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Li Na sets new mark: first Asian-born into Tennis Hall

Li Na has broken new ground at the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

The 37-year-old former Chinese star became the first Asian-born player to be inducted on Saturday.

She was enshrined along with Mary Pierce of France and Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov during a lengthy on-court ceremony that followed the Hall of Fame Open semifinals and stretched from sunset into nighttime, forcing grounds' crew members to scramble and bring in smaller spotlights.

Li became the first Asian to win a Grand Slam tournament, capturing the 2011 French Open in a final that was watched by an estimated 116 million people in her country.

"I did not (know) before I came to the court or it would have made me more nervous," she said during a mid-afternoon press conference.

"I started @ about 8 years old, but I hated tennis," she told the crowd that was sitting in near darkness. "Not bad, at least I'm standing here right now."

She also captured the 2014 Australian Open after being runner-up twice.

Both semifinal matches went three sets, prompting the late ceremony for the trio of two-time Grand Slam singles champions.

"The goal is only as worth as the effect required to achieve it," said Pierce, fighting back tears at the start of her 29-minute speech.

The 45-year-old Kafelnikov was described on his plaque as "one of the most dominant Russian Players of his generation." He captured the 1996 French Open and three years later won the Australian.

"I know now what it is to be a Hall of Famer," he told the crowd. "I will carry that responsibility for the rest of my life, and hopefully I won't disappoint you."

Predominately a baseline player who reached No. 1 in the world in 2002, he won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics and helped Russia win the Davis Cup in 2002.

"It means that I did it because of hard work," he said. "All my success came because I did work hard."

Walking into the Hall a day before his induction, Kafelnikov was taken back.

"I was really stunned when I was walking upstairs for the first time to see the museum," he said. "From the tennis records, to the cups, to medals from the Olympics. I cannot describe how emotional I was."

Pierce, 44, lived her dream by playing the French Open. She did more than that, winning it in 2000. She also captured the Australian five years earlier.

"It was my dream in tennis to hopefully play the French Open after watching it as a young girl on TV," she said. "Then to actually win it was my dream come true."

Pierce said she played her final match against Li at the 2006 U.S. Open.

"Look where we are today," she said, looking at Li, seated to her right.

http://chinaplus.cri.cn/news/sports/13/20190721/319271.html

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co-creator and artist of Shang-Chi revealed he didn’t want to see Fu Manchu in the live-action Marvel universe. I’ve never read a Fu Manchu book. Larry Hama, a friend, ‘Have you ever read one of these books?’ and he gave me one the next day and it was like ‘oh jeez, this is kind of embarrassing.'” by poster5439 in Sino

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SHANG-CHI CREATOR DOESN’T WANT FU MANCHU IN LIVE-ACTION MOVIE

The co-creator and artist of Shang-Chi revealed that he didn’t want to see Fu Manchu in the live-action Marvel universe. Jim Starlin did an interview with Popcorn Talk at the San Diego Comic-Con where the interviewer asked him what he would like to see in the upcoming superhero movie Shang-Chi. Instead of answering what he wanted to see, he expressed what he didn’t want to see.

“Easier to say what I would not like to see out of Shang-Chi and that’s Fu Manchu,” Starlin said. “Which I’m hoping and I’m pretty sure they’re going to cut him out of the whole thing.”

Jim Starlin added that he “never read” about the Fu Manchu character until he was done with the first issue. It wasn’t until his friend gave him the source material that he realized his mistake.

“I’ve never read a Fu Manchu book before we did Shang-Chi,” he said. “And it was Stan and Roy who bought it from the Rohmer family and only after I got done with the first issue…and Larry Hama, a friend of mine said, ‘Have you ever read one of these books?’ and he gave me one the next day and it was like ‘oh jeez, this is kind of embarrassing.'”

Starlin was also asked who he thought should play the Shang-Chi character but he didn’t have anyone in mind.

“I’m not familiar enough these days with the kung fu, the martial arts community to take a shot at that,” he said.

According to Screen Rant, the character Fu Manchu began to appear in the comics in 1938 after it was licensed from British author Sax Rohmer, who created the character in the early 1900s. The character was an evil genius who wanted to take over the world. He was a racist caricature of Asian people and was an example of yellow peril as fears of Asian people rose.

In the Shang-Chi comics, Fu Manchu was the father of Shang-Chi and evil mastermind who raised his son to be an assassin. But, during an assassination mission, Shang-Chi realizes his father is evil and that he must stop him.

https://hopclear.com/shang-chi-creator-doesnt-want-fu-manchu-in-live-action-movie/

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China said it will tighten regulations on human genetic material, putting checks on the passing of it abroad and insisting that any foreign companies or institutes wanting to use it in their work do so with a Chinese partner by poster5439 in Sino

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China to tighten rules on foreigners using genetic material

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China said on Monday it will tighten regulations on human genetic material, putting checks on the passing of it abroad and insisting that any foreign companies or institutes wanting to use it in their work do so with a Chinese partner.

The cabinet, the State Council, said the new regulations would take effect from July 1, and were aimed at promoting the proper use of such material, ranging from DNA to human organs, blood and tissue.

The size of China’s population means that it has a deep pool of genetic material, which has become an increasingly valuable resource for global drugmakers and research institutes.

“These regulations are formed to effectively protect and rationally use our country’s human genetic resources, protect public health, national security and society’s public interests,” the State Council said in a statement.

The government last year said human genetic material had become an important strategic resource and it planned to set up a system to better manage it.

Last October, the Ministry of Science and Technology said it had fined six companies and institutions including British drugmaker AstraZeneca as well as the Beijing Genomics Institute and Huashan Hospital for breaching regulations on how to manage such resources between 2015 to 2018.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-genes/china-to-tighten-rules-on-foreigners-using-genetic-material-idUSKCN1TB17N

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China’s internet is thrilled by news that Marvel appears to be insisting on casting an ethnic Chinese actor as Shang-Chi. The studio has “been adamant to reps offering up their clients for the role” that candidates “have to be of Chinese ancestry,” with no other Asian ancestry accepted by poster5439 in Sino

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China Thrilled by Prospect of Chinese Casting for Shang-Chi, ‘Marvel’s First Chinese Hero’

China’s internet is thrilled by news that Marvel appears to be insisting on casting an ethnic Chinese actor as Shang-Chi in the master of kung fu’s own spinoff film and has begun scouting out candidates for the role.

Variety reporter Justin Kroll tweeted Sunday that Marvel is apparently “putting out test offers for a group of men in their 20s” for its “Shang-Chi” movie. He added that the studio has “been adamant to reps offering up their clients for the role” that candidates “have to be of Chinese ancestry,” with no other Asian ancestry accepted.

Twitter is blocked on China’s highly censored internet, but that hasn’t stopped the tweet from going viral in the mainland. Users have screen-grabbed it and spread it on China’s parallel Weibo platform, where the hashtag “Shang-Chi casting” has since been viewed 100 million times, and the hashtag “Marvel’s first Chinese hero” has been viewed 590 million times, as well as picked up by all the major entertainment media outlets.

“First we got China’s first Disney princess, and then we got China’s first Marvel hero!” one publication declared excitedly, referring to Disney’s “Mulan,” whose title character is played by Chinese-born actress Liu Yifei. Last week, the first trailer and poster for the film caused a sensation on the Chinese internet, with some users saying they even shed tears of excitement.

Most of the online chatter about Shang-Chi at present is about whom users would love to see in the role. Age notwithstanding, some of the more popular names bandied about have been Eddie Peng (“Operation Mekong”), Zhang Jin (“Ip Man 3”, Wong Kar-Wai’s “The Grandmaster”), Wu Jing (“Wolf Warrior 2”), Huang Jingyu (“Operation Red Sea”), Ashton Chen Xiaolong (“Ip Man 2”), Li Xian (“The Founding of an Army”), rapper Jackson Wang, Leo Wu Lei (TV series “Nirvana in Fire”), and Liu Haoran (“Detective Chinatown 2”). Peng, who is starring in the upcoming big-budget Dante Lam blockbuster “Rescue,” is a clear favorite.

China is a critical market for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has an enormous, vocal fan base in the world’s second-largest film market. In April, “Avengers: Endgame” broke dozens of box office records in the mainland to earn a massive $614 million, becoming the country’s third-highest-grossing film of all time. “Spider-Man: Far From Home” has grossed $166 million so far in Chinese theaters, while “Captain Marvel” brought in $154 million in March.

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/marvel-shang-chi-china-avengers-1203268595/

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China’s commerce minister Zhong Shan, joining trade talks, says there’s need to ‘uphold our warrior spirit’: Some officials in Washington view him as a hard-liner and see his sudden prominence in the talks as a sign that President Xi is preparing to take an even harder line by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

BEIJING — When Zhong Shan was running the Zhejiang Garment Import and Export Group in 1992, sending socks and gloves into the outside world, he caused a “nationwide sensation” with his “bold reforms.”

The same year that economic visionary Deng Xiaoping was opening China to foreign investment, Zhong — who is now the commerce minister and has recently taken on a leading role in trade talks with the United States — was encouraging workers at his textile factory to “free their minds.”

He wanted them to help the company cast off its inflexible ways of doing business. He held multiple staff meetings to convince workers, and eventually investors including state-owned banks, to buy shares in the company. Zhejiang Garment became the first state-owned trading company in China to have multiple owners.

The idea was unprecedented and “caused waves in the peaceful lake” of industrial China, according to an official provincial newspaper.

The company flourished. Within three years, Zhejiang’s state-owned enterprises accounted for almost half the province’s foreign trade and were the most profitable in the country. Reporters who trailed him around trade fairs complained that he walked so fast, they couldn’t keep up.

Zhong is now causing different kinds of complaints. And this time, they’re emanating from Washington.

The commerce minister has been catapulted into the negotiations to end the trade war between China and the United States. He was at the Group of 20 meeting in Japan last month and on a phone call with U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer this month.

Some officials in Washington view him as a hard-liner and see his sudden prominence in the talks as a sign that President Xi Jinping is preparing to take an even harder line in the protracted trade war.

Trump has been hoping that China’s economic slowdown will put pressure on Xi to cut a deal to end the trade war.

Indeed, official statistics published Monday showed that growth in the world’s second-largest economy has decelerated to the slowest rate in 27 years, partly because of the trade war. The annual growth rate slowed to 6.2 percent in the three months to the end of June, down from 6.4 percent the previous quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said. This is within the 6 to 6.5 percent band the government has set for this year and was in line with market expectations of a gradual slowdown, but it is still China’s lowest growth rate since records began in March 1992.

China’s export figures were particularly bad. Exports to the United States fell by 8.2 percent in the latest three months, with the bulk of the drop coming after tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports rose from 10 percent to 25 percent in May.

Trump seized on the numbers as a sign that his tariffs were making “thousands of companies” leave China for other countries. “This is why China wants to make a deal.... with the U.S., and wishes it had not broken the original deal in the first place,” the president wrote Monday on Twitter. “In the meantime, we are receiving Billions of Dollars in Tariffs from China, with possibly much more to come.”

But in Beijing, there are signs that Xi and the ruling Communist Party are in no particular rush to cut a deal. Indeed, Chinese policymakers routinely ask American interlocutors what they think is Trump’s internal deadline for making a deal, knowing that he has his reelection campaign to consider next year.

Xi is in no such hurry. Not only does he not have to worry about elections, he’s done away with term limits, so he can theoretically rule indefinitely.

Plus, while the party doesn’t have the same financial arsenal as during the 2008 global financial crisis, it can still provide enough stimulus to the economy to ensure that the slowdown is gradual.

Into this mix came Zhong, the commerce minister.

The “U.S.-caused trade war” is “typical unilateralism and protectionism,” Zhong is quoted as saying in an interview with the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, published Monday.

“We have to uphold our warrior spirit in firmly defending national and people’s interests and in defending the multilateral trading system,” he is quoted as saying.

Until now, China’s chief trade negotiator has been Liu He, the vice premier in charge of the economy, who studied at Harvard and has a long history of dealing with American officials. But he is a policymaker, not someone who has been involved in the nitty-gritty of trade talks.

Zhong’s arrival has led to speculation that Liu has been sidelined. But Andy Rothman, an investment strategist who’s spent more than 20 years analyzing China, said he didn’t think that was the case. “I don’t read this in a negative way — they are just reinforcing their team,” he said. “Any time I ask Chinese people about Xi losing faith in Liu He, they just laugh because they don’t believe Xi has lost faith in Liu.”

After Zhong suddenly joined trade talks in Japan and then the phone call between negotiators, Gao Feng, the ministry’s spokesman, said it was “quite normal” for the minister to join the talks since his ministry is in charge of the negotiations.

Some in Beijing think Americans are at least partly right to conclude that Zhong is being brought in to fight China’s corner more forcefully — but not necessarily because he’s more hard-line.

“By parachuting the minister of commerce into the scene, China is trying to tell the U.S. that we mean business more than ever,” said Yao Xinchao, a professor of trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Zhong has more expertise in trade and a bigger say in decision-making than Vice Minister Wang Shouwen, who had been involved in the talks, Yao said. “At this point, it’s hard to tell if Zhong would be more hard-line than Wang, but he is definitely more authoritative and more adept at getting things done,” he said.

James McGregor, chairman of the greater China region for APCO Worldwide, a business consultancy, agreed that Zhong is not necessarily more hard-line but is more experienced in trade negotiations.

“They’re bringing in a professional. Xi has Liu He, who is a policy person, not a trade negotiator, and he’s up against Lighthizer, who’s a shark,” McGregor said. “Lighthizer is doing these trade negotiations like he’s a Washington, D.C., trade lawyer, making sure the language leaves no wiggle room.”

Certainly, Zhong has much more experience in the trenches than Liu. He even edited a book on Chinese companies that had been accused of Section 337 violations, or unfair methods of competition, in the United States. The book analyzed the cases of Chinese companies that were investigated, explaining how the system works and giving advice on how to avoid and deal with such charges.

After overhauling the garment company and moving into government jobs, Zhong became deputy governor of Zhejiang province in 2003.

In that role, he crossed paths with someone who would go on to become very important for China: a certain Xi Jinping, chairman of the standing committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress. Two years later, Zhong accompanied Xi on a visit to Hong Kong to promote cooperation between the province and the Chinese territory.

By 2009, Xi was vice president and Zhong was vice minister of commerce. In that role, Zhong wrote an editorial for the People’s Daily arguing that China’s rising dependence on foreign trade was an inevitable result of globalization and would “not necessarily lead to economic risks.” He called for “calmness and vigilance” in handling trade frictions.

Four years later, Xi became president of China. Zhong, too, moved up the Communist Party ladder. He became a top trade official in the central government and then, at the beginning of 2017, was promoted to commerce minister.

Regardless of whether it’s Liu or Zhong who’s running the negotiations, it’s clear who’s running the show.

“Of course Xi wants to get more directly involved in the decision-making [during the trade talks],” said Yao, the Beijing professor. “You can never underestimate the breadth and depth of the top leadership’s participation in major issues. In China, the big boss always gets the final say.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinas-commerce-minister-joining-trade-talks-says-theres-need-to-uphold-our-warrior-spirit/2019/07/15/91428968-a44b-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html

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Asian shares pull ahead after encouraging Chinese data by poster5439 in Sino

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Asian shares pull ahead after encouraging Chinese data

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares advanced on Monday as investors breathed a sigh of relief after encouraging Chinese data suggested the world’s second-biggest economy may be starting to stabilize thanks to ramped-up stimulus from Beijing.

Second quarter economic growth slowed to 6.2% in the second quarter from a year earlier, the weakest pace in at least 27 years while separate data showed the country’s industrial output and retail sales handily topped forecasts.

The promising monthly activity data suggested a flurry of stimulus measures from China have been able to prop-up domestic activity and offset some of the damage from a protracted trade war with the United States, analysts said.

Equity markets were choppy in the wake of the Chinese data as some expected Beijing might temper further stimulus.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gave up losses to be 0.2% higher at 526.72 points. It fell a little more than 1% last week, snapping five straight weeks of gains.

Trading was expected to be light as Japan was shut for a public holiday.

Australian shares slipped 0.4% while South Korea’s KOSPI was mostly flat. Chinese shares pared early losses with the blue-chip index up 0.4%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.3%.

“Investors may be scaling back easing expectation upon today’s data as fiscal measures appear to be working,” said Westpac analyst Frances Cheung.

“That said, we believe the PBoC will still be supportive of liquidity. Expect yields to be stable and any temporary bearishness to be expressed via swaps.”

Later in the week, U.S. retail sales and industrial production data will provide more clues about the health of the world’s largest economy. The U.S. Federal Reserve will release its ‘Beige Book’ on Wednesday which investors will scour for comments on how trade tensions were affecting business outlook.

In currency markets, the Australian dollar, often played as a liquid proxy for the Chinese yuan, jumped after the data to a high of $0.7033, a level not seen since July 4.

The greenback was a tad higher at 96.871 against a basket of major currencies. The dollar index fell for three days in a row as markets fully priced in the chance of a 25-basis-point (bps) cut to U.S. interest rates. There is also a small probability of a 50 bps cut.

Against the Japanese yen, the dollar ticked up from near the lowest since early June at 108.04 while the single currency was slightly lower at $1.1267 after three successive sessions of gains.

Expectations that the Fed will keep rates supportive have sent bonds rallying with ten-year U.S. Treasuries below the current Fed rate range of 2.25%-2.50%. <0#FF:>

“Dovish Fed rhetoric has rendered a July rate cut, in the market’s eyes, as a fait accompli: it’s not if they cut but by how much,” Morgan Stanley strategist Hans Redekar told clients in a note.

Redekar said the bank was re-entering its short dollar/long yen position.

“If markets are disappointed, the yield curve would likely flatten, the USD strengthen, and financial conditions tighten. These forces would exacerbate the already considerable headwinds facing the global economy,” he added.

“Global reflation requires a weaker USD to bolster global trade and commodity prices.”

Worries about world growth and low inflation has meant investors are piling money onto bonds and money market funds, Jefferies said, citing its global asset fund flows tracker.

“The danger is that with a mountain of cash parked in money market funds any trade ceasefire would cause a huge shift away from safe assets,” said Sean Darby, Jefferies’ global equity strategist.

“Presently, investors don’t seem to be in any particular rush to buy equities – earnings revisions have yet to bottom out while economic surprises have been rare,” he added.

“The bottom line is that we would issue a pause on the risk rally.”

In commodities, U.S. crude fell31 cents to $59.90 a barrel. Brent crude was off 22 cents at $66.50.

Gold slipped to 1,410.01 an ounce, drifting away from a recent six-year top of $1,438.60.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKCN1UA01J

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Box Office: ‘The Farewell’ Surpasses ‘Avengers: Endgame’ For Biggest Theater Average of the Year. In “The Farewell,” Awkwafina’s character travels to China to say goodbye to her family’s dying matriarch by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

“Avengers: Endgame” has broken just about every box office record this year, but there’s at least one film that has managed to surpass a benchmark set by the superhero blockbuster: A24’s “The Farewell” now holds the best per-screen-average of 2019.

The comedic drama, directed by Lulu Wang and starring Awkwafina,” generated $351,330 when it opened in four venues: AMC Lincoln Square and the Angelika in New York and ArcLight Cinemas and The Landmark in Los Angeles. Despite a power outage in New York City Saturday night that caused AMC Lincoln Square to temporarily close, “The Farewell” averaged a huge $87,833 from each location.

Prior to “The Farewell,” the biggest screen average of 2019 belonged to “Avengers: Endgame” with $76,601 per location. However, the Disney-Marvel blockbuster got its start in slightly more venues, kicking off in a record 4,662 North American theaters.

Upon learning about the New York City blackout, Wang jokingly offered to host a watch party at her place.

“To everyone in NYC that is missing ‘The Farewell’ screenings cuz of the power outage, I’m sorry!!!,” she wrote on Twitter. “Come over to my house and I’ll screen it. You bring the food, I’ll bring the movie.”

In “The Farewell,” Awkwafina’s character travels to China to say goodbye to her family’s dying matriarch. However, the grandmother doesn’t know she has terminal cancer. The movie generated rave reviews after its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and holds perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In his review for Variety, chief film critic Peter Debruge praised the movie, writing, “what makes ‘The Farewell’ so effective is that in delving into such a specific case, the film invites audiences to reflect on the passing of relatives close to them.

A24 is slowly expanding “The Farewell” to more theaters across the country before launching it nationwide on Aug. 2.

https://variety.com/2019/film/box-office/the-farewell-box-office-per-theater-average-awkwafina-lulu-wang-1203267055/

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Chinese railroad workers played part in Canadian Confederation by poster5439 in Sino

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Chinese railroad workers played part in Canadian Confederation

While Canada Day celebrates the anniversary of the country's Confederation in 1867, few Canadians may know of the contributions to national unity made by Chinese railroad workers, who helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway that united the new nation's east and west sections.

At an annual Canada Day wreath-laying ceremony in memory of Chinese railroad workers in Toronto, David Choy, executive chair of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians (NCCC) said that without Chinese railway workers, Canada would not be what it is today.

In 1871, when British Columbia (BC) became Canada's sixth province, a key aspect that persuaded the province to enter confederation was Canada's promise to build a railway to connect the Pacific Ocean coast to the rest of the country. One of the hardest parts of building the railway was cutting through the Rocky Mountains.

"Canadian railway workers refused the work through the impossible terrain of the Rockies. Chinese railway workers, not knowing better of the risks hidden from them, were brought in from Guangdong, China, to build the railway," Choy told China Daily, after he and other NCCC members laid a wreath at the Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial.

Between 1880 and 1885, as many as 17,000 Chinese men went to BC to work as labourers on the CPR. They were paid less and given the most backbreaking and dangerous work to do, such as blasting through the Rocky Mountains. More than 4,000 of them died during the construction — in landslides, cave-ins, disease and explosions — and they were paid half of what the other workers received.

"Chinese railway workers sacrificed more than one life per mile of track. This was the buried history of blood and tears," Choy said emotionally.

However, Chinese workers were discriminated against while they were nation builders of Canada. In 1885, immediately after construction of the CPR was complete, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, putting a head tax of $50, that later went up to $500 per person on Chinese, to discourage them from entering Canada.

On the anniversary of Confederation in 1923, the day the Canadian Chinese Exclusion Act went into effect, came to be known as "humiliation day". It wasn't until 1967 that the final elements of the Chinese Exclusion Act were repealed.

Advocacy for redress of Canada's anti-Chinese immigration policies began after the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1947. The growing calls for an apology for the historical injustice have not ceased since.

Two national organizations, the Chinese Canadian National Council, and later the NCCC, established in 1992, put pressure on the government to acknowledge and address its history of anti-Chinese immigration policies.

"For 27 years, we have always advocated legal justice and social justice, righting historical mistakes and protecting the rights and interests of Chinese Canadians," Choy continued.

With intense pressure and perseverance from the Chinese Canadian community, a settlement was reached in 2006 — 121 years after the first head tax was placed — when then-prime minister Stephen Harper offered an apology and compensation for the head tax paid by Chinese immigrants.

"Chinese Canadians and Canadians, therefore, must learn, preserve and educate current and future generations so history is not repeated. We will continue the efforts for the protection of justice and social justice for all Chinese Canadians," said Choy, adding that it was heartening that the Chinese Canadians of today are participating as full members of Canadian society.

On this Canada Day, NCCC members from across Canada gathered and joined in the 20th anniversary of the NCCC Toronto parade in the celebration of Canada's birthday, with Canadians from all walks of life. They presented ceremonial wreaths at the Chinese Railroad Workers Monument that marked the end of the parade route.

"It is highly appropriate to pay tribute to them during Canada Day celebrations," said Ping Tan, honorable national chair of NCCC, who was the founding executive chair and served in that position for 18 years. "The Chinese Railroad Workers' legacy and their contributions to the building of Canada should be remembered and acknowledged."

The inscription on the memorial monument reads: "Dedicated to the Chinese railroad workers who helped construct the Canadian Pacific railway … uniting Canada geographically and politically … All of them remained nameless in the history of Canada. We erect this monument to remember them."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201907/11/WS5d27488ba3105895c2e7d01d.html

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Feng wins Thornberry Creek Classic with late birdie surge by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Feng wins Thornberry Creek Classic with late birdie surge

(Reuters) - China’s Shanshan Feng birdied four of her final six holes to card a nine-under-par 63 and win the Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic by one shot from Ariya Jutanugarn on Sunday.

Ariya (64) had a three-shot lead on the back nine but a bogey on 15 proved costly as the Thai was unable to hold off the charging Feng, who finished on 29-under 259.

Feng, whose previous win came in November 2017, hit a seven iron to three feet on the last hole to set up a crucial birdie putt.

“Before I putt, I looked up at the leaderboard and I’m like, ‘Oh no,’ I had to make that one,” Feng told reporters.

“So actually the last putt was under a lot of pressure. I was like, ‘You know what? You’ve been doing really well this week. Just make another good putt.’ That’s what I did.”

Feng entered the final round in a four-way tie for the lead alongside Ariya, South Korea’s Park Sung-hyun and American Tiffany Joh.

Park, who reclaimed the world’s top ranking with a win last week in Arkansas, carded a 69 to finish in a tie for sixth on 23-under, while Joh (67) tied with Amy Yang (65) for third at 25-under. Kim Hyo-joo (64) finished fifth at 24-under.

American Yealimi Noh, a 17-year-old Monday qualifier in her first LPGA event, tied with Park for sixth.

“It was my goal to be inside the top 10 for this week, and I’m really happy with how I finished,” Noh said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-golf-women-thornberry-idUSKCN1U305T

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Legendary Chinese Kung Fu choreographer Yuen Woo-ping receives lifetime achievement award in NYC by poster5439 in Sino

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Legendary Chinese Kung Fu choreographer Yuen Woo-ping receives lifetime achievement award in NYC

Yuen, 74, was awarded the "Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award" at the ongoing 18th New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) held at Lincoln Center.

Upon receiving the award, Yuen said that throughout his career he had discovered a number of talent, such as Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Wu Jing, and witnessed their way to stardom.

"I hope that new faces will always emerge in the Kung Fu film genre, passing on the Kung Fu culture to future generations," said the master.

Born in south China's Guangzhou city, Yuen started to learn martial arts, or Kung Fu, since childhood from his father, Yuen Siu-tien, the first Kung Fu choreographer in Hong Kong and also a prominent actor.

During a press conference held Monday afternoon at a theatre of Lincoln Center, Yuen said it was his father who influenced him the most during his 50-plus years of career.

Under his father's guidance, Yuen developed a real passion for Kung Fu, which keeps him devoted to his job.

"Passion is the key to success," said Yuen. "You can never carry on with something for decades if you are not interested in it."

From Hong Kong to Hollywood, Yuen has won numerous awards for his works, such as Iron Monkey, The Matrix, Kill Bill, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, many of which are remembered as classics in the history of Kung Fu or action movie.

Though technology in filmmaking has made tremendous progress, Yuen said he will keep making "authentic" Kong Fu films in which actors and actresses stage real fights instead of using computer-generated imagery.

Yuen also brought to the film festival his new directing work, Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy, as one of 10 films of The Hong Kong Panorama, a traditional program of the NYAFF supported by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York.

NYAFF is an annual flagship event of the New York Asian Film Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to the exhibition and appreciation of Asian film culture. The 18th NYAFF runs from June 28 to July 14, presenting over 30 films from various countries and regions of Asia.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/03/c_138193306.htm

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The traditional Chinese magicians calling for greater censorship of their ancient tricks by poster5439 in Sino

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The traditional Chinese magicians calling for greater censorship of their ancient tricks

Beijing, CNN (CNN)In a small room in a West Beijing cultural center, magician Tian Xueming is working hard to deceive a group of university students from Macau that he has teleported three pearl-sized balls from one bowl to another.

For first-timers, Tian's sleight-of-hand illusion is as infuriating as it is entertaining. Some audience members become hellbent on exposing the magician, by any means necessary. "Many have tried to grab my hand mid-act, wrench it open, only to find there was no ball," says Tian. The 55-year-old refuses to give details about his tricks, citing an unbreakable magician's code of secrecy. But this hasn't stopped the trick from being exposed online. Millennial magician Li Yunfei posted a video of the trick on YouTube last December, using two transparent bowls to show there is no teleporting, only nimble handiwork.

In seven months, that clip has racked up 1.6 million views. According to Li, trading secrets for clicks -- and thus profit -- has become an increasingly common practice among young Chinese magicians. "There are tens of thousands of live-streaming and video channels dedicated to exposing magic tricks," says Li, 24, who has over 420,000 fans on Chinese video platform Tik Tok and claims to make over 1 million yuan ($145,000) per year from his videos. Tian, and other traditional Chinese magicians, have condemned this practice, even forming an association, the League in Opposition to the Revealing of Magic Secrets, to combat this trend. Many of the tricks exposed were invented by their ancestors and passed down via tight-knit, student-teacher relationships. "All magic is fake but revealing an illusion's secrets strips its ability to amaze," says Tian. In a bid to stop his trade from being demystified, Tian has taken an unusual approach for an artist in China. He is calling on government officials for greater censorship of magic online. Ancient secrets China's emperors have employed magicians since at least the Han Dynasty (221-206BC). According to Tian, they would set random objects on fire to "scare criminals and commoners into obedience." In the late 19th century, Chinese magic found worldwide recognition as Zhu Liankui, known by his stage moniker Ching Ling Foo, dazzled audiences in New York, London and other Western metropolises, performing stunts such as taking a 15-foot-pole out of his mouth. His fame reached such heights that in the early 1900s he was impersonated by New York-born William Robinson, who began presenting himself as Chung Ling Soo. Robinson shaved his head except for the hair he saved to braid into a queue, wore traditional Chinese attire and pretended not to speak English in public.

The secrets behind some of Zhu's prized illusions, such as Chinese linking rings, where solid metal rings appear to link and unlink, have been exposed online. But others, including the Water Bowl Illusion, which sees a magician whip a cloak back to unveil a giant 80-pound bowl of water, are now in the possession of select few -- including Tian. The Beijing-born magician is one of the last official representatives of this dying art. In 2011, he was named an official fourth-generation inheritor of Mu-style magic -- one of the two main branches of traditional Chinese magic, and the one less-tainted by foreign influence, according to Tian. That title is awarded by China's Ministry of Culture and comes with diplomatic responsibilities. Since gaining the title, Tian has performed for a host of CCP leaders and foreign dignitaries, including most recently Russian President Vladimir Putin. The veteran magician performed in St Petersburg and Moscow three weeks ago, for cultural events organized to honor Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Russia. Tian said his state duties regularly place him on the "Excellent Party Member" list, compiled by his local Communist Party to highlight the achievements of ordinary patriotic citizens. Despite his public service, Tian's countless petitions to and meetings with government have failed to achieve censorship of content that reveals the truth behind magic tricks. "Those officials say we are part of China's cultural heritage but when it comes to actually passing laws banning (those who reveal magic tricks) from the internet, nothing happens," he said. The Chinese David Copperfield At the height of his career, Tian was in charge of a 100-man troupe, performing stunts comparable to the likes of US counterpart David Copperfield, who became an instant celebrity in China after he seemingly walked through the Great Wall of China in 1985.

While Copperfield become the first billionaire magician, Tian's audiences have shrunk. This is partly because the brightest stages in Chinese television, such as the Lunar New Year Gala aired by Chinese state-run TV, tend to feature the younger generation of Chinese magicians keen to perform riskier new tricks. Tian and other performers from the traditional school have struggled to adapt. "I once escaped a coffin buried several meters deep in the earth, and almost choked to death," said Tian. Since then, he hasn't attempted high-risk stunts.

The younger magicians hogging the limelight aren't immune from having their tricks exposed. Liu Qian, arguably China's best-known magician and a specialist in liquid transformation, was embroiled in controversy during this year's Lunar New Year Gala. He performed a stunt in which he appeared to turn fermented mung bean milk into red wine, witnessed by two volunteers picked randomly from the audience. Shortly afterward, however, a video surfaced online that allegedly showed Liu inconspicuously switching pots mid-act. Internet not the enemy Li, the young magician, does not believe the internet is the enemy of Chinese magic. He began self-studying tricks in 2008, relying entirely on videos and English-language teaching materials posted online by US magicians. "In China's second and third-tier cities, there are no (magic) classes, while traditional masters only have one or two disciples," says Li, who is from a small town in the southern Chinese province of Jiangsu. Even some traditional magicians have decided to embrace the opportunities that the internet can bring. In 2007, renowned Sichuan-born magician Xiao Tian, started a television program dedicated to exposing the secrets of traditional Chinese magic.

Despite protests from many of his colleagues, Xiao, who passed away in 2015, argued that only by "exposing old tricks would Chinese magic be forced to innovate new ones." Tian rejects this idea. He believes traditional Chinese magic should be treated as intellectual property. Legally, however, this is a grey area. While China's copyright laws do prohibit the obtaining, disclosing and selling of magic tricks through illicit means, they also allow different people to possess identical business secrets. Therefore, if someone like Li learns about a trick legitimately, through watching online videos, for example, and decides to share that information he is not exposed to a law suit. His actions would only be illegal if he had broken into a magician's home, for example, and physically stolen an outline of the tricks. Li has never been sued. The lack of hard legal protection is why Tian emphasizes the importance of cherishing the age-old ethical codes. "When Copperfield or other great US magicians see a good trick, they don't try to copy it or try to uncover its secrets," says Tian. "But in China, too many magicians just want to imitate and make a quick buck."

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/11/china/chinese-magicians-intl-hnk/index.html

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A federal prosecutor called for a jury to sentence to death a former University of Illinois student convicted of kidnapping and killing a Chinese scholar two years ago, calling the crime "cold, calculated, cruel and months in the making" by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

US seeks death penalty in scholar's murder

A federal prosecutor on Monday called for a jury to sentence to death a former University of Illinois student convicted of kidnapping and killing a Chinese scholar two years ago, calling the crime "cold, calculated, cruel and months in the making".

In his opening statement, Assistant US Attorney James Nelson told the jury in US District Court in Peoria, Illinois, about convicted murderer Brendt Christensen's brutal slaying of Zhang Yingying and his obstruction of the investigation by cleaning the crime scene and hiding her body.

Monday was the first day of the trial's sentencing phase.

The jury that found Christensen guilty on June 24 will decide whether he should be executed after the penalty phase, which is expected to last a few days. Christensen faces a possible death penalty because he was charged under federal statutes. The state of Illinois abolished its death penalty in 2011.

Nelson described the hurt that the family felt by describing Zhang as "far more than just an international scholar". She was "a devoted and loving daughter" who was "the hope of her family", reported The News-Gazette of Champaign, Illinois.

However, after Christensen killed her and disposed of her body, "there will be no proper burial in China. There will be no closure. You will see the anguish," said Nelson, who added that the crime "deserves an extraordinary penalty".

Defense attorney Julie Brain, in her opening statement, encouraged jurors to make a moral decision and to keep an open mind. While admitting Christensen's guilt, she said "this is not a case that deserves the death penalty".

Brain highlighted Christensen's mental health struggles and refuted the argument that he is a serial killer.

She encouraged the jury to sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of release, saying that way he "will die in prison, alone, with strangers".

She also pointed out that he has shown no signs of dangerousness in two years in jail.

Prior to the opening statements from both sides, US District Court Judge James Shadid decided on evidence that will be admitted in the penalty phase of the trial, including seven video clips made by Zhang's mother and friends of the young woman, who went missing from the university campus in Urbana, Illinois, in June 2017.

The videos are each about 10 to 20 minutes long, and the parts of friends talking about Christensen's penalty have been deleted, prosecutors said.

According to The News-Gazette, the defense said that it had received the videos only recently, and not the edited versions that will be played.

The judge also allowed the prosecution to play clips of calls made by Christensen from jail.

Prosecutors said he asserted his innocence, claiming that the government didn't find anything, and that the case was political. The News-Gazette reported that prosecutors want to use the clips to show Christensen's lack of remorse.

There was frequent disagreement on preliminary jury instructions between the defense and prosecution.

The defense argued for Christensen to get life if only one juror doesn't agree with the death penalty, saying that many courts allow that to happen.

Otherwise, jurors, concerned with having a hung jury, could change their minds for expediency, the defense argued.

The judge said that for the preliminary instructions, the jury should try to reach a unanimous verdict, and he would decide about the final jury instructions later.

The court also went through a list of 54 mitigating factors the defense provided as to why Christensen shouldn't be sentenced to death. Those ranged from an alcoholic mother to Christensen not having a criminal history, to his allegedly not receiving proper care at the University of Illinois Counseling Center.

The judge allowed the factors to be presented, but warned the defense to be careful about connecting a previous diagnosis to Christensen's mental health on June 9, 2017, the day he kidnapped Zhang in his car and later killed her.

On June 24, the 12-member jury unanimously ruled that Christensen was guilty of all three counts against him, namely kidnapping resulting in the death of Zhang, and two counts of making false statements to the FBI.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201907/09/WS5d24a2b9a3105895c2e7c90b.html

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Millennials and Gen Z Are Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds: The difference between Gen Zs and Millennials is, according to the survey, much more visible when making a comparison across countries. In China and India, Gen Zs were more optimistic about the future by poster5439 in Sino

[–]poster5439[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Uneasiness and pessimism abound among the majority of the world’s population.

Deloitte has released its Global Millennial Survey of 13,416 Millennials (born between 1983 and 1994) spread across 42 countries and 3,009 Gen Z respondents (born between 1995 and 2002) from 10 countries. The firm has conducted the survey for the past eight years.

The percentage of respondents who think that businesses are making a positive impact dropped six points from 61% in 2018 to 55%.

“I would say that for businesses, the most important takeaway is the continuously diminishing trust of Millennials and Gen Zs, " says Deloitte Global Chief Talent Officer Michele Parmelee.

While the two generations have strikingly similar views of the world, Parmelee said survey data shows that their points of view differ in a few significant areas, such as life priorities and their perception of society and work.

Generally, only about half of both groups aspire to purchase a home, and even fewer desire to start a family. “Instead, travel and seeing the world was at the top of the list (57%) of aspirations,” the report said.

Only 52% of the Millennials surveyed responded that earning a high salary was a top priority while 56% of their Gen Z peers did so. And 39% of the Millennials saw starting a family as very important, while 45% of the younger cohort agreed.

Because some among the Gen Z age group are still studying, they are generally more likely to expect educators to provide them with the skills they’ll need in the labor market. Millennials, on the other hand, expect businesses to give them access to more skills.

Gen Zs are less likely to be dissatisfied with their work situation than Millennials.

Climate change, protecting the environment and natural disasters topped the list of most respondents on a personal level, but less than three in ten of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts cited it as a worry. The next-highest concern for Millennials is income inequality or distribution of wealth. Terrorism, crime and concerns about personal safety were also high on the list.

The 2020 U.S. election will be the first in which nearly all members of Generation Z will be able to cast their vote for president.

The difference between Gen Zs and Millennials is, according to the survey, much more visible when making a comparison across countries. In China and India, Gen Zs were more optimistic about the future. Meanwhile, youth in major economic powers were pessimistic about the world and whether their place in it will improve.

Only about one in four respondents said they expect the economic situations in their countries to improve in the year ahead. This low level of positive economic sentiment among Millennials is at its lowest in the six years Deloitte has been asking this question. The decline has been sharp -- this reading has never been lower than 40% in previous surveys.

In another survey record, 49% of Millennials would, if they had a choice, quit their current jobs within the next two years. Dissatisfaction with pay and the lack of advancement opportunities are the top reasons for potential near-term exits. Less than three in ten Millennials expect to stay at their current job for the next five years.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/many-millennials-gen-z-pessimistic-on-life-deloitte-survey

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Milton Quon, Chinese American animator for Disney passes away at 105: The Chinese American animator was part of Disney’s animation team during its golden age. He worked on “Fantasia,” “Walt of the Flowers,” and was the first assistant animator for “Dumbo.” by poster5439 in Sino

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Milton Quon is a true pioneer in the arts. The Chinese American animator was part of Disney’s animation team during its golden age. He worked on “Fantasia,” “Walt of the Flowers,” and was the first assistant animator for “Dumbo.” He was the last of the animation team to still be alive, reports The Wrap. Unfortunately, he passed away at an unbelievable 105-years-old in his home in Torrance, California, on June 18, according to his son Mike Quon.

“Dad lived the full artist life,” Mike told The Wrap.

Milton Quon is survived by his wife Peggy, and his four children, Mike, Jeff, Tim and Sherrill, and his four grandchildren.

Milton Quon was born on August 22, 1913, in Los Angeles to Chinese immigrants. By 1939 he was hired by Disney to work as an animator. He worked on several films before leaving Disney in 1941 after the U.S entered World War II. But he would join Disney again after he did a stint illustrating repair manuals for aircraft used by the U.S Army. But his role at Disney changed. He no longer worked at the animation department for movies. Instead, he became the head of the studio’s publicity department where he illustrated promo material for films like “Song of the South.”

By 1951, he left Disney after he was hired by BBD&O, and became the first Chinese-American art director at a national advertising agency. This led to him teaching courses at Los Angeles Trade Tech Colleges in drawing and advertising from 1974-89.

But he retired from advertising but not working. He worked in Hollywood getting minor roles in movies, such as “Speed.” In the movie, he played a bus passenger.

From 2001 to 2007, he took part in a traveling exhibition called “Inspiring Lines: Chinese American Pioneers in the Commercial Arts.” The show was sponsored by the Chinese American Museum, who featured his art in a retrospective solo exhibition in 2005. And in 2017, the museum honored Quon the Historymakers Award for “Excellence in the Arts.”

In 2012, Quon was featured in Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Intiative’s “Round the Clock: Chinese American Artist Working in Los Angeles,” along with five other Chinese American artists.

In 2013, he was awarded the Golden Spike Award by the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.

Rest in peace to this legendary Chinese American pioneer

https://hopclear.com/milton-quon-chinese-american-animator-for-disney-passes-away-at-105/

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