Different New Year in the UK

Happy New Year! This is the first New Year I spent in the UK. The first feeling come to my mind is nervious. Why? Because coming abroad equals lonely. Therefore, in order to avoid the lonely, I did lots of research work and made a list named things to do during the New Year.

How wonderful the Hyde Park is!

Parkland setting with festive attractions set out under a myriad of twinkly lights: Winter Wonderland returns to the heart of London this weekend, offering further proof that the Christmas countdown is officially underway. It seems like Miaohui in China, which is also a market for food and amusement park for play. The first sight I saw its highlight, I feel kind of home seek.

The most attractive entertainment is outside ice skating. There's no doubt about it - London has experienced a boom in ice skating in recent years. I arrived at six pm, a long queue outside the rink. It is cold that day, however, it seems that no longer do you have to wait for your local stretch of water to freeze over, or risk the roller derby effect of an indoor complex.

Increasingly too, late-skates and DJ nights provide an alternative while rinkside cafes and eateries have grown more sophisticated, with special platforms and viewing 'galleries' for those who would rather sit the action out.

New Year Countdown and Parade

More than 200,000 people lined the Thames in London to watch a firework display to welcome in the New Year.
Clear skies gave the crowds a perfect view of the seven-and-a-half minute display above the London Eye.
The £313,000 display was cut by two minutes this year, helping organisers save a total of £70,000.
But deputy mayor of London Richard Barnes, who was in charge of the fireworks, said people were still getting a "good bang for your buck".
He said the major cost of the event was ensuring the safety of the crowd and organising travel arrangements so they can get home.

It is convenient that the Tube, DLR and buses allowed people to travel for free until half past four.
According to reports, most rail operators said they were unable to offer free travel on New Year's Eve following the withdrawal of £100,000 in tax subsidies by the current mayor, Boris Johnson.
That is really unacceptable, because for the 1st January, the travel fare in London has been raise 20%. What will this money go?

Speaking ahead of the event, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "I know for many people in London 2009 has been a very tough year, but there are signs of optimism everywhere. "I hope that people will celebrate all the hard work they've put into 2009." He added: "London is the greatest place to have a party any day of the year." So far, it gives a good image for me.

New Year's Day Parade on January 1
The parade, now in its 24th year, covered a two-mile route, starting at Piccadilly at midday and ending in Parliament Street. However, it is new for me.
This year performers marched the route in reverse to give 100 million US TV watchers the best views of London. The show, which drew the "biggest crowd ever", featured 8,500 performers from 20 countries and 22 London boroughs.

Organisers said they reversed the route for US broadcasters who wanted their audience to see sights such as Big Ben and Trafalgar Square.
The parade has long been popular in the US and nearly 4,000 Americans took part in 24 different marching bands last year.
The event was broadcast live by about 550 television stations around the world - including in China and Australia - targeting a global audience of 240 million people.
Dan Kirkby, the communications director for the parade, said it was "vital" for tourism.
He said: "We're delighted with the crowd, it's the biggest we've ever had.
"These are great pictures of iconic London and we're hoping to get the cash registers ringing for the new year."

When the parade ended, I could feel my holiday for New Year was ended too. The parade and firework or other events has been hold for New Year, all of these were try to leave some beautiful memory for people. Let us don’t forget the New Year. Don’t forget the year 2009. However, what are the meaningful thing we could not forget. The past has been past. We should looking forward to the future. That is more meaningful.

Happy New Year Everyone! Hope your dream comes true!

One end of China’s human right action

Six Network articles, a personal capacity voluntarily signed the "Charter 08", two hours hasty trial (both prosecution and the defense have no more than 14 minutes to speak), they are all evidence to sent Liu Xiaobo to jail for 11 years. The adjudge was announced on the same day Christmas eve, on an independent writer, intellectual, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to heavy penalty.

Chinese government uses Liu as a target, jailed him with proposes of warning to others. On one hand, the government continues to warn that the deal with Europe, the United States and Australia and other Western countries. On another hand, which is more important, they are target for warning other human rights defenders, push them gives up the rights of freedom of speech.

On the 2008 "World Human Rights Day", Liu Xiaobo was taken away from his home. A whole year, the Chinese government deals vigilantly with a series of politically sensitive date, deals with all kinds of economic uncertainty, well-prepared themselves a special appearance as a powerful country on the world stage. At the same time, for Xi Jinping, Bo Xilai and other princelings, it represented the next generation of CPC leadership succession forging a new discourse of the ruling.

The core of my view is not focus on the repression gangdom, but it provide an evidence of identification difference between "government official " and "citizen". In these government official’s eyes, citizen like Liu xiaobo equals to gangdom, equals to the group of people which threat social security.

Charter 08

After Liu Xiaobo has been prosecuted, many people who signed the "Charter 08" stand up and say that we sinned as him. It is because they see the point: Liu Xiaobo, for people all in the present and future may be conflict with the official, government, bears the suffering himself.

The "Charter 08" is not long, but the contents of complex, each person may have different understandings. The Charter is different from the previously groups movement. There are no protests or conflicts. It is a document of requirement from the people. It is not committed to format a group or organization, but stressed that the dignity of citizenship, calling for the independence of the individual citizen commitment.

Nowadays, gap between rich and poor in Chinese society leads to frequent intensification of social conflict situations. Suggestions for the Government from experts and scholars are keeping starting warning. It is widely argued that if the problem is not dealt with, it would be threat to social stability. That problem is not resolved, could cause unrest.

Mass incidents

Although the total number of mass incidents is not decreasing, the number of repression by government police has significantly increased. In every year, provinces and cities have plenty of the events that people’s strong opinions were viciously repressed. After period of Beijing Olympic Games, more instructions show that repression of mass incidents is going to be a daily work for future.
Liu Xiaobo tries hardly to exercise his rights, and so did Tan Zuoren and Ai Weiwei who collected the truth of the shabby work in the Sichuan province. These are the provisions in the Constitution of the PRC to protect civil rights.However, Liu was sentenced to jail, not only hurt those who efforts to promote universal values of foreign persons and Western countries, but also living in China, every citizen. In order to protect citizens themselves in the future when the conflict happens between the official and government, there is no law or Constitution of the PRC protects them. China's people need Liu Xiaobo to restore freedom.

Glad to back home against heavy snowing

When our plane landed on the London Gatwick Airport, all passengers on broad applauded for the successful landed and our captain.

The thick snow on the ground outside the window make me realized I left Africa, left sunshine and beach, backed to the snow world. At the same time, I began to glad that I changed my mind at last minute and decided to go Africa instead of Skiing in Europe for Christmas vacation.

Whole journey backs to London, I was experiencing some turbulence and made me believe the reality of snowing attack in Europe.

EasyJet's Twitter site called for calm from passengers: "We do not intend to make anyone angry we are trying our best to assist." Another post said: "You may not get an answer immediately we are snowed under, excuse the pun!" Ryanair said 35 flights had been delayed, with the major delays taking place at Stansted. Now I could calm down.

After we arrived, the Gatwick airport was almost empty. Few passengers stay at the airport for someone picks them up to home. I could not find lot passengers were waiting for plane. It could be seem that the airport has learned for experiences that how to solved travel chaos caused by bad weather.

However, the Europe does not feel the same lucky. More than 80 people have died across Europe as days of snow storms and sub-zero temperatures swept the continent, causing traffic chaos for millions. At least 42 people have frozen to death in Poland over the last three days and another 27 in Ukraine. Another 13 people died in car accidents in Austria, Finland and Germany, where temperatures fell to -33C (-27F).

British Airways cancelled all European and UK domestic flights leaving Heathrow after seven o’clock 21 December. Channel Tunnel services remain badly affected after Eurotunnel closed its car shuttle service to new passengers.

Opposite the cold weather, we still could feel the warm in these frozen days, a restaurant owner offered tens of thousands of homeless people a hot meal in Krakow's main square. "The food is not the only important thing," restaurateur Janusz Kosciuszko was quoted as telling Euronews. "What is also important is that these people know that someone is thinking about them."

Hope everyone could find a warm to spend this winter!

Time honors the 'Chinese worker'

In China, they are known as nongmingong, meaning "farmers-turned-workers", a term that likely means more in Chinese than it does in English. And now this important segment of the Chinese workforce have come to world prominence, thanks to Time magazine naming them runners-up to Ben Bernanke in its latest Person of the Year awards.

While the US Federal Reserve chairman scooped the top honor, the fact that the nongmingong were singled out shows their importance on the global stage.

Leaving behind families and homes to migrate to China's cities, they take on largely manual work and are among the country's lowest-paid workers. They often go about their work in relative obscurity, despite numbering around 200 million. But while the nongmingong will garner a good deal of attention, Bernanke will be on the cover of the magazine, in recognition of his maneuvering of US monetary policy that helped steer the world's largest economy out of the financial crisis.Chinese workers ranked second were the only group named. The magazine described them as "an increasingly influential group in one of the world's most powerful economies."

This year, China's year-on-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth is set to exceed 8 percent. The growth rate means it will contribute about 20 percent of this year's global economic growth, Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said last month.

Analysts said the country's nongmingong were an important part of the economic miracle in recent years. "This group will have a great bearing on China's future development," said Chen Gong, chief economist and chairman of Anbound Group, a Beijing-based consulting firm.

"More importantly, they are linking the cities and the rural areas, playing a role in bridging the gap between the two," he said. The important role of migrant workers in the Chinese economy, however, accentuates the fact that China still relies on low-technology manufacturing to support its economic development, said Zhong Jiyin, an economist with the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

Monitor critique (4): Copenhagen Conference

The Copenhagen summit is closed in a remarkable chaos and controversy. This is, at least in parts of the world media and public evaluation of the results of the summit, then there would be slightly different as seen.
British media considered that the summit failed to reach the basic legally binding treaty is a complete failure, and the responsibility of failure is due to China.
U.S. media mainly focus on the president Obama and the Secretary of State Clinton turn the international climate talks pushed to a "new era" at a critical moment.
Mainly the Chinese media, Premier Wen Jiabao intervention is to promote the "Copenhagen agreement" reached the key.
Asia, Africa, Europe, rest of American and other national media coverage have different focuses.

The UK

Britain's mainstream media generally agreed that the Copenhagen summit is a complete failure and that the main reason for the failure is China's "stonewalling."
British Energy Minister Ed Miliband publicly accused China "veto" a number of mitigation proposals during the summit, leading to the summit into a "chaotic" situation.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told the media that some developing countries "kidnapped" climate summit.
Only a small number of people in theUK suspect global warming caused by human activities, scholars in the media commented that the results of the summit is not a bad thing now.

Europe

Germany and France media seem to be less intense denounced the outcome of the summit than the British media. 
Many German media report dissatisfaction on the final agreement is clearly ignored the views of the European countries. 
In accusing the United States, China and other big polluters failed to fulfill their duties at the same time, many analysts pointed out that the United States, China, India and other powerful countries sign a climate agreement is already a big step forward . 
While the French media considered that the summit results do not generally satisfactory, but it seems the French commentators take more "gun" to the current plummeting public support for President Nicolas Sarkozy. 
"Le Monde" published a review article pointed out that the whole summit, Sarkozy has consistently demonstrated outstanding during the period. President ignores the co-ordination with other European countries.

American

Except European media, the United States and Canada, the media reaction to the summit is relatively mild, and some even "positive." 
U.S. and Canadian media both reported that suspected "man-made climate change”. There is also reported the results of many scholars believe that the fact is "not so bad," "should look at the next" information. 
South American powerful country Brazil's media are mainly focused on the summit demonstrated a new pattern of world politics further. 
Brazilian media have reported that the countries which signed the Copenhagen Agreement not only include U.S., China, there are also India, Brazil, Indonesia and even the Sudan and other countries. 
In addition, the Brazilian media is also generally agreed that the although results of the summit unsatisfactory, but is not a complete failure.

Asia and Africa

Most media in Asian countries responds to the summit is also relatively mild
While some Japanese media reported the summit matters, they focus on the summit during the negotiation process between China and the US-led "new world order."
Indonesian media reports questioned why Indonesia, the so-called "big country" is out during the summit, or even "was abandoned in the side"?
The Caribbean island Grenada media reports that the leaders of great powers unwilling to make "difficult decisions" and therefore the final answer is compromise.