ZILVER VOOR BELGIË!

vr 22/08/08 - De Belgsiche vrouwenploeg is tweede geworden in de 4x100m finale. Het is meteen de eerste Belgische medaille.

Sporza

Even los van alle perikelen qua mensenrechten in China: Het is onze zuiderburen, Kim Gevaert en haar ploeg van harte gegund. België kan wel een opsteker gebruiken.

Naomi Klein: Olympics Are Coming out Party for "McCommunism"

JAY: The fireworks have been bursting at the most expensive opening to an Olympic ceremonies in history. Just what is being celebrated? You've called what's happening in China the communism. What do you mean?

KLEIN: The communism, Stalinism, market Stalinism, authoritarian capitalism, I think this is an incredibly efficient, actually, a scarily efficient way of organizing society that's actually being celebrated here, which is a hybrid of some of the worst elements of authoritarian communism—mass surveillance of the population, total lack of civil liberties, lack of a free press, lack of democratic rights, authoritarian central planning, all harnessed not to advance the goals of social justice, even in name, although there may be some lip service still paid to that, but to advance the goals of global capitalism. So it is Stalinism meets global capitalism. And it works. China is the most successful capitalist economy in the world: 11 percent growth, year after year after year. It is the most successful economy in the world. And that efficiency, that success, is intimately tied, I would argue, to the suppression of democratic rights. It's not successful despite the fact that it's not a democracy, despite the fact that you don't have independent trade unions; it is successful in large part because of that, because workers can't organize independent unions, [coughing] because Beijing, if they want to build a new export processing zone or a new shopping mall or a new Olympic stadium, can just raise whatever they want to raise and build whatever they want to build and displace as many people as they want to displace.

The Real News

China's "communisme" lijkt verdacht veel op de "successen" van de neoliberale globalisering...maar dan nóg ongeremder. Hoe meer economisch succes, hoe minder democratie.

Klinkt als de race to the bottom die ook met Europa in gang is gezet...

Sportkleding nog steeds 'besmet'

Honderden uren extra overwerk per maand, de helft van het minimumloon, voetballen die voor 50 dollarcent gemaakt worden en dure sportschoenen die voor nog geen twee dollar in elkaar worden gezet. Het zijn volgens de organisatie Play Fair de praktijken van merken als Adidas, Asics, New Balance, Nike en Puma.

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Schone Kleren

"We" hebben in het vrije westen altijd de mond vol van de Chinese onderdrukking van Tibet. "We" wijzen naar China vanwege het schenden van de menselijke waardigheid van de Falun Gong-aanhangers. "We" geven graag af op dat vermaledijde communisme, en gaan prat op het kapitalisme als synoniem voor "vrijheid" en "democratie."

Droom lekker verder. Ondertussen zijn "we" gewoon geen haar beter dan de Chinezen.

Ik wens "ons" een fijne sportzomer.

Johnito.

Deadly violence in Tibet as Buddhist monks lead protests

The Tibetan capital Lhasa erupted in deadly violence Friday as security forces used gunfire to quell the biggest protests against Chinese rule in two decades, officials and rights groups said.

The protests, which spread outside Tibet into other areas of China, came amid a growing international campaign by Tibetans to challenge Beijing's rule of the Himalayan region ahead of the Olympic Games in August.

Several people lost their lives and many others were injured in Lhasa on Friday, an official at the city's medical emergency centre told AFP, with Radio Free Asia reporting at least two people had been killed by Chinese bullets.

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