beyondBeijing2008.com

 KABUL - It was six in the morning on Oct. 3, 2009, when insurgents began their assault on Combat Outpost Keating, a remote area in Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan.  The attack started with small-arms fire, but soon escalated as up to 300 militants — it’s unclear exactly how many — started to rush the outpost where two American platoons and a command element were positioned.  Base commanders at Keating called for urgent air support.  Insurgents were inside the wire.  Parts of the outpost were on fire. If help didn’t come soon, the commanders said, COP Keating would be overrun. 

Air support eventually did arrive at Keating and the attack was repelled, but eight American soldiers were killed. 

A military investigation last week into the deaths offered harsh criticism.  The investigation said commanders on the ground had become “complacent†with base security at COP Keating once they learned that the outpost scheduled to be closed. Military commanders in eastern Afghanistan had determined that COP Keating was of no real strategic or tactical value.  In effect, the investigation blamed commanders for not continuing to adequately secure Keating once they knew U.S. troops would be leaving it.  

“There were inadequate measures taken by the chain of command, resulting in an attractive target for enemy fighters,†the investigation said.

But why were U.S. troops still at COP Keating in October 2009, months after commanders decided to evacuate to outpost?  Was it complacency that killed the soldiers, or delays in leaving the outpost in the first place? 

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TOKYO, Japan – I’ve always found Japanese press conferences to be infuriatingly polite.

And that’s initially how it seemed Thursday as we were ushered into a large conference hall at Toyota’s Tokyo headquarters for a presser called to unveil the company’s much improved quarterly results.

It was packed, and soon highjacked by the recall crisis, putting beleaguered executives on the defensive, describing quality as their “lifeline.” They revealed that the recalls would cost Toyota a staggering $2 billion in lost sales and costs to put right the gas pedal problems which have led to the recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide.

Just as I was beginning to enjoy it, Toyota called time. Thirty minutes had been allocated, and after precisely 30 minutes, that part ended. Then another executive in a grey suit took the hot seat to talk – for exactly 30 minutes more – about new problems, this time with Toyota’s best selling hybrid, the Prius.

The Prius problem is a brake problem, and involves dozens of complaints about inadequate braking on bumpy or frozen roads. It doesn’t appear to be on the scale of the gas pedal recalls, although the company plans to recall 270,000 of its Prius hybrid in Japan and the U.S., according to a report by the Nikkei News Service. However, on Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson at Toyota’s U.S. sales division said he did not have any information about Toyota’s decision to recall the Prius.

Still, Prius’ woes have a broader significance – the hybrid is the jewel in Toyota’s crown, and these cars were made in Japan.

Until now, there has been a real tendency here to see the quality problems as a foreign problem. Several times I’ve been told, “This could never happen in Japan.”

Toyota here is more than a car company – it’s a national icon. Only last week it was named as Japan’s best known and most valuable global brand.
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A celebrated British soccer coach once claimed some people thought the game was a matter of life and death: “Listen,” he said, “it’s more important than that.” In some ways, that sums up how I feel about my special relationship with chocolate, and Cadbury’s chocolate in particular.

Cadbury has been one of the cornerstones of Britain’s confectionary industry for more than a century. I grew up with Cadbury chocolate; its TV commercials and advertising slogans (”Everyone’s a fruit and nut case”), its new product launches and most importantly its delicious creamy taste: there’s nothing quite like the taste of Cadbury’s chocolate. In blind tastings (common in the Jeary household), I can still pick out Cadbury’s from other brands.

So to hear Cadbury is to be taken over by Kraft Foods sends a sugar rush from my taste buds to my waistline.

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A favorite myth that pops up around this time each year is that the Super Bowl has a global audience of 1 billion people.  

But if the National Football League has its way, Chinese football fans could turn that fiction into fact someday.

In a country where American sports imports have had mixed results – basketball being the noticeable exception – the NFL has been quietly trying to build a Chinese fan base over the past few years.

While Major League Baseball is trying to catch up to the National Basketball Association in China by creating a generation of baseball players through large-scale school programs, the NFL has taken a different approach. The league has invested heavily in social media and is reaching out to fans through China’s preferred mediums: television and the Internet.…(read more)

BEIJING – China’s crackdown on organized crime and government corruption is reaching a climax with the start today of the trial of the former senior police officer of Chongqing on charges of corruption, rape and protecting criminal gangs.

The high-profile investigation, which began last summer, has captivated the nation due to its gripping tales of top-level corruption, sex and a violent underworld that controlled businesses and sowed terror in Chongqing, a city of 30 million people, chosen by Beijing in 1997 to lead the economic take-off of the poor southwestern hinterland.

So far, the campaign has resulted in 782 prosecutions, including 87 city officials, the police chiefs of six districts and several tycoons.

The clampdown has won popular support, although there is some skepticism about how far Beijing will go in striking at the roots of corruption across China.

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