Friday Morning Tea: Free Oiwan Lam…Forbidden City for stat geeks…Slate and Bushisms…PRI and Young China…HtWW and Lu Xun in Japan…Vote for us

Hong Kong-based citizen journalist and Global Voices Online contributor Oiwan Lam is facing charges of indecency in Hong Kong for posting an artsy topless photograph found on Flickr. She is facing a lengthy–and expensive–court battle and needs your help. The case has quickly become a cause célèbre in the China blogosphere. More information available at EastSouthWestNorth, Global Voices Online, Imagethief, RC Conversation, An open letter from Oiwan Lam, and Lost Laowai. Ryan McLaughlin’s company Dao by Design has also created “Free Oiwan Lam” badges for websites. Finally, a blog has been set up to provide updates on Oiwan’s situation. For stat geeks on holiday in Beijing, China Daily has a feature called “The Forbidden City by the Numbers.” The article is chock full of measurements, ratios, and other fun figures. (And no there are not 9999.5 rooms, best as they can figure there are only 8,707.) Slate Magazines Bushism of the Day: “I cannot look a mother and father of a troop in the eye and say, ‘I’m sending your kid into combat, but I don’t think we can achieve the objective.’ “—Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007. Yikes. This week on PRI’s The World radio program, Mary Kay Magistad

Visa applications and extensions just got a little more difficult

Since many researchers are here on some cobbled-together amalgam of dodgy Z visas, F visas, and/or multiple extensions of an L visa…the pre-Olympic “harmonization” of the foreign community may have implications for research plans in the PRC beginning this month:

From Today in China:

I received the following notification from the company for which I’m working.

In the meeting held by the Exit & Entry Administration Ministry of Beijing on July 12, 2007 afternoon, expats’ visa application process were revised as following:

From July 16,2007 till the end of the Olympic games in 2008, in order to ensure the security of Beijing, during the 2008 Olympic Games, the Ministry of Public Security will carry on strictly foreign management in China.

1. If applicants enter China with L, F visa, the visa cannot be transformed to other visa types. (Except for the applicant’s job title is above vice president, legal representative of the company, director, or foreign representative office’s leader).2. The urgent application (express visa service) cannot be accepted by the government for the time being.3. When foreigners with L, F visa need to extend their staying in Beijing, the applicants need to do the visa extension personally, and

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