US secretary of state warns, on a visit to Jakarta, that Asian neighbours need a maritime deal to avoid a ‘miscalculation by somebody that could trigger a conflict’
Sunday, February 16, 2014
HONG KONG Disneyland Posts Profit
Hong Kong's Disney theme park is set to post its second profitable year since opening in 2005, with attendance hitting a record of over 7.5 million people thanks to strong demand from mainland Chinese visitors.
CHINA Goes Big in Olympic Men's Aerials
What are China's chances of winning gold in the men's freestyle skiing aerials competition at the Sochi Olympics on Monday?
SOUTH KOREA Condemns Bombing of Tourist Bus in Egypt
South Korea condemned Sunday's bombing of bus carrying Korean tourists in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
JAPAN'S Growth Slows, Raising Concerns About Obstacles That Lie Ahead
The Japanese economy grew at a tepid rate of 1.0 percent in the final quarter of 2013, heightening concerns that Japan’s recovery may not be strong enough to weather further challenges expected this year.
RUSSIA'S Putin Basks in Glory of Sochi Games
Vladimir Putin says sport and politics do not mix but his actions at the Winter Olympics suggest the opposite. When he was not watching ice hockey in Sochi during the weekend, the Russian president was doing the diplomatic rounds, dropping in on foreign teams, sipping wine or tea with them, talking sport - and building bridges. He also found time to visit an injured Russian athlete in a hospital and press the flesh with fans at the ski venues in the mountains above Sochi. The...
HONG KONG: How a dialect differs from a language
HONG KONG'S education department caused a furore last month by briefly posting on its website the claim that Cantonese was “not an official language” of Hong Kong. After an outcry, officials removed the text. But was the claim correct? The law says that “Chinese and English” are Hong Kong’s official languages. Whereas some people say that Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, others insist that it is a language in its own right. Who is right—and how do dialects differ from languages in general?Two kinds of criteria distinguish languages from dialects. The first are social and political: in this view, “languages” are typically prestigious, official and written, whereas “dialects” are mostly spoken, unofficial and looked down upon. In a famous formulation of this view, “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy”. Speakers of mere “dialects” often refer to their speech as “slang”, “patois” or the like. (The Mandarin Chinese term for Cantonese, Shanghaiese and others is fangyan, or “place-speech”.) Linguists have a different criterion: if two related kinds of speech are so close that speakers can have a conversation and understand each other, they are dialects of a single language. If comprehension is difficult to impossible, they are distinct languages. Of course, comprehensibility is not either-or, but a continuum—and it may even be asymmetrical. Nonetheless, ...
JAPAN: Sochi 2014 Day 10 - Curling Women's Round Robin Session
Carmen Schaefer of Switzerland in action during the Curling Women's Round Robin match between Japan and Switzerland on day 10 of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Ice Cube Curling Center
RUSSIA: Sochi 2014 Day 10 - Curling Women's Round Robin Session
Anna Sidorova of Russia reacts during Curling Women's Round Robin match between Sweden and Russia on day 10 of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Ice Cube Curling Center
RUSSIA: Sochi 2014 Day 10 - Curling Women's Round Robin Session
Anna Sidorova of Russia in action during Curling Women's Round Robin match between Sweden and Russia on day 10 of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Ice Cube Curling Center
PORT OF HAKATA: Dazaifu dalliance reveals curious case of a plum-struck deity
The story behind Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine involves political skullduggery, the supernatural and a gifted child who became a god.
SINGAPORE: Government To Limit Influx Of Foreign Workers
Singapore will continue to limit the influx of immigrants with work permits to the country, acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said Feb. 16, Xinhua reported. Tan added that Singapore's long-term goal is to keep the country's annual labor force growth to 2 percent. Migrant workers often take the jobs with salaries that are too low to appeal to Singaporeans.
RUSSIA: U.S. hockey team beats Russia in Sochi
The U.S. men's ice hockey team defeated Russia 3-2 in a gripping shootout at the Sochi Winter Olympics on Saturday. Regulation time ended in deadlock, as did a five-minute overtime, and seven rounds of a shootout. Then American center and designated shootout marksman T.J. Oshie, who had taken most of the shootout shots, became an instant hero by slapping the puck through Russian goalie Sergei Bobrovsky's legs, and it was over.
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