Miscellaneous News

Any protesters greeting Xi?

Warning Will Robinson! Hitomi hit a snag.

NEW YORK --Japan's space agency says communication has failed with a newly launched, innovative

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with X-ray telescopes meant to study black holes and other space mysteries.

The agency said in a statement Sunday that since the problem began Saturday afternoon, it hasn't known the condition of the satellite, called "Hitomi." It's trying to reconnect with the satellite, which was launched on Feb. 17.

The Japan Times newspaper says a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency official, Saku Tsuneta, said that he didn't know yet if communications could be re-established. The paper said astronomy observations can't start this summer as expected if the problem continues.

The Japanese space agency did not return a request for comment.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said he suspected that the satellite had suffered an "energetic event," possibly a gas leak or a battery explosion, that sent the satellite tumbling end-over-end. That would mean its antenna isn't pointing where it needs to, which is why the satellite can't communicate with the space agency, he said.

The danger is that in that state, the satellite may not be able to draw the solar energy it needs to its panels and its battery will run down before the space agency can reconnect with the satellite and try to fix it, he said.

"Everyone's just gutted," said McDowell, who works with another high-tech

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. "To hear that they've run into this piece of bad luck, it's so very sad. I know enough about how the sausage was made to know that this could have easily have happened to us. Space is very unforgiving."

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Be nice if Google is available in China permanently.

Last night, Web users in China had access to all of Google’s services – something that the country’s

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was supposed to prevent.

From 11:30pm on Sunday to 1:15am on Monday morning (local time), people with IP addresses based in mainland China could use YouTube and Google’s search facility. Traditionally, people would

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to access these services, but for 105 minutes they didn’t need to.

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However, other Western sites such as Facebook remained blocked.

Many took to social networking sites such as WeChat and Weibo to pronounce a return of free speech in China, reports the

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“At that moment, I even believed that Google was unblocked and that free speech had come back to [mainland] China again.”

However, just under two hours later, the Wall was back up and service – or a lack thereof – resumed. The reason, people are citing, is down to Google bringing online a number of new IP servers for India, Japan and other countries in South-East Asia.

Because they were new, China’s Great Firewall, also referred to as the

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, didn’t not recognise the IP addresses as ones it should block, and allowed them to pass through the censors.

But just under two hours after the floodgates were opened, they were sealed shut once more. This isn’t the first time the world’s most sophisticated Web filtering service

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In 2013, Facebook and Twitter managed to

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. However, despite a series of high level talks

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and the Chinese government, it seems Western sites aren’t going to be getting a chance to sell their wares inside the country any time soon.

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Blackstone said:

Be nice if Google is available in China permanently.

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Google, Facebook, and Twitter are all non-issues in China. Chinese alternatives for these services are already firmly entrenched among Chinese internet users. Even if they were allowed to operate freely tomorrow, they would find little user base aside from expats and hipsters.

solarz said:

Google, Facebook, and Twitter are all non-issues in China. Chinese alternatives for these services are already firmly entrenched among Chinese internet users. Even if they were allowed to operate freely tomorrow, they would find little user base aside from expats and hipsters.

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I think you know very well the issue isn't availability of optional platforms but their unfettered contents.

Blackstone said:

I think you know very well the issue isn't availability of optional platforms but their unfettered contents.

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First, their content is hardly "unfettered". They simply bow to corporate interests instead of state interests.

Second, the Chinese people certainly don't seem to think that's an issue.

PRAGUE – Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in the Czech Republic for a visit designed to boost economic and political ties.

Xi's arrival Monday is a result of a current more pragmatic and business-oriented Czech approach to China than under the late President Vaclav Havel when the country was a champion of human rights.

President Milos Zeman visited Beijing last year as the only EU leader to attend the celebrations of the end of World War II.

During his three -day trip, Xi is scheduled to meet Czech leaders and sign an agreement on strategic partnership. Business deals and memorandums are expected also to be struck in connection with his visit.

Prague is the only stop in Europe for Xi, who is on his way to the United States.

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solarz said:

First, their content is hardly "unfettered". They simply bow to corporate interests instead of state interests.

Second, the Chinese people certainly don't seem to think that's an issue.

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Google and the like also readily bow to state interests, just not the PRC's.

solarz said:

First, their content is hardly "unfettered". They simply bow to corporate interests instead of state interests.

Second, the Chinese people certainly don't seem to think that's an issue.

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I don't get it. If it is a non issue why have two successive posts on an issue which is supposedly a non issue.

Like this hasn't happened before? There's always stories of how sites that are banned sporadically have access in China. I doubt Google would announce they were behind it. They want back in China. A major reason why Google spun itself into a subsidiary from a new larger alphabet corporation is because Sergei Brin and Larry Page's association with Google is the first hurdle of ever getting back into China. Has anyone read an article that actually says Google was behind it? I haven't read one yet except assumptions. After the hypocrisy of willingly doing the very thing for the NSA that they whined about China demanding, Google is in no position to hide behind some morals. I doubt someone on WeChat would declare "free speech" has returned to China when the Chinese probably don't understand the concept. It's like Hong Kongers crying for democracy when they use intimidation to stifle others from questioning them. You know how many Asians want me to be quiet because I, one powerless person out of billions in this world on the internet, might raise the ire of others for my positions? And all of them hide behind the US. They demand conformity which goes against democratic principles. They don't want Chinese to express individualism because they think Americans won't like that and they might be punished for what I say. Look at all that hypocrisy on top of hypocrisy. All of the sudden those communist things are okay if it works for their agenda. Like Google isn't going to stack the deck anti-Chinese when Chinese do searches through their portals. That's the general criticism of Google and others where they design searches because corporations pay them for priority spots on search results. Like that can't serve a non-free political agenda as well. I do searches on China a lot and my yahoo home page is always filled with anti-China articles. You don't think they would do that to brainwash the Chinese the same way they accuse what happens over there. I don't see a difference and therefore I'm okay with blocking Google and anyone else that regularly engineer searches to serve an economic and political agenda. And remember these internet corporate powerhouses are against net neutrality. That isn't defending "free speech."