- Quashing freedom of speech: It doesn’t only happen on the northern side of the Korean peninsula. The North’s dictatorial regime is well-known for trampling citizens’ human rights and bullying anyone who disagrees with it, but the South can do oppressing of its own, according to human rights group Amnesty International. The group on Thursday called for the release of a South Korean activist accused of re-tweeting messages from the North Korean government’s Twitter account, a direct violation of South Korean security laws. According to Amnesty International, Park Jeonggeun, an activist with the Socialist Party, sarcastically re-tweeted a message from the North containing the message “long live Kim Jong-il” to his own followers. The recently-deceased dictator passed before he could start World War III, but is still causing conflict from the great beyond. Jeonggeun is a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of babies but was unable to much photography last month after being detained on charges of violating the National Security Law which bans undefined “acts that benefit the enemy.” The original offending tweet came from the North Korean government Web site, Uriminzokkiri.com, which posted the message shortly after Kim Jong-Il’s passing. Jeonggeun spent much of January at Seoul Detention Centre and was formally charged on Wednesday. If convicted, he could face up to seven years in jail. Amnesty International decried the decision to charge Jeonggeun simply because sarcasm doesn’t translate well on Twitter. “This is not a national security case, it’s a sad case of the South Korean authorities’ complete failure to understand sarcasm,” Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director, said. “Imprisoning anyone for peaceful expression of their opinions violates international law but in this case, the charges against Park Jeonggeun are simply ludicrous and should be dropped immediately.” The group quoted Jeonggeun in a story on its site as saying: “My intention was to lampoon North Korea's leaders for a joke; I did it for fun. I also uploaded and changed North Korean propaganda posters on Twitter - I replaced a smiling North Korean soldier’s face with a downcast version of my own face and the soldier’s weapon with a bottle of whiskey.” All of that is great, but it was apparently done on the erroneous assumption that it is possible for a government to have a sense of humor……….
- All portly, diary-writing ladies out there are going to have to wait a while longer for their icon to return to the big screen. Renee Zellweger’s reprisal of Bridget Jones is still moving forward, but the next chapter in the story has been pushed back for now. Working Title Films issued a statement Friday announcing that production on the third film in the series has been delayed indefinitely but should get underway later this year. The project, titled “Bridget Jones' Baby,” will reunite Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant in another predictable romantic comedy. There is no mystery about why the project is being delayed; multiple sources have pointed to script issues as the reason. Several sources have reported that Grant was especially displeased with the script and others went so far as to claim that Grant had withdrawn from the project entirely. Working Title co-chairman Tim Bevan sought to debunk those rumors in a press release. “Reports that Hugh Grant has exited Bridget Jones’s Baby are untrue,” Bevan said in the statement. “We are still working on the script hence the delay to the start of production, but the film is going ahead as planned." The script, subpar as it may be, is based on the titular character created by author Helen Fielding just as the first two films were. The original schedule called for shooting to begin in the next few weeks, but the cast and crew have reportedly been informed that the delay could push that start date back to the fall. Firth is involved in several other projects and reworking his busy schedule will complicate matters as well. Ironically, Fielding herself co-wrote the script along with David Nicholls, so making revisions while remaining true to the book should be straightforward. “The Full Monty” director Peter Cattaneo is helming the project and seeking to replicate the success of the first two films in the series, “Bridget Jones’ Diary” ($282 million worldwide) and “Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason,” ($262 million) at the box office. You know, if the movie finally gets made………
- The cry for an NFL team in Los Angeles is strong, even if it isn’t coming from Los Angeles fans and locals. With so many transplants and so few native SoCal residents in L.A., there is no major push for a local team to identify with because all of the transplants come with their own favorite team from wherever they used to live. But local business and political leaders know what a financial boon they would receive from having a team in the nation’s second-largest media market and so does the NFL. Both sides are working toward putting a team in L.A. and according to commissioner Roger Goodell, if the NFL puts a team in Los Angeles, it is probable the league would expand to 34 franchises by dropping two teams in the city instead of one. During an interview on NBC Sports Network, Goodell said the league "doesn't want to move any of our teams" in order to place a team in L.A. "We probably don't want to go to 33" teams by adding just one new club if a suitable stadium is built in the Los Angeles area, Goodell said. While insisting there are no immediate expansion plans, Goodell conceded that the league does want to place a team in L.A. "We would like to be back in Los Angeles if we can do it correctly," Goodell said. Before any decision on having a team in the city can be reached, a choice must be made between two competing stadium proposals. That decision will be made before long simply because there is too much money already committed and too much more to be made for those in power not to make up their minds……….
- So……life must pretty good in Providence, R.I. right about now, no? The winter hasn’t been as brutal as expected, spring isn't far away and for the capital city of Rhode Island, the living has to be solid…..or not. While there may not be piles of snow on the ground in the capital, there are also not piles of cash lying around and because of that city officials are in a full-fledged financial panic. Mayor Angel Taveras said during a Thursday morning news conference at City Hall that his town will be in bankruptcy by June if it doesn't get help resolving its financial crisis. Five months remain in the current fiscal year and Taveras announced that the city will run out of cash by the start of summer and faces a $22.5 million deficit in its budget for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. That would be the pessimistic side, but there is a silver lining for the crisis. The budget shortfall was projected at $110 million last March, at which time Taveras declared a "category five" financial emergency in Providence. Thanks to new contracts with unions, laid-off workers, spending cuts and increased state aid, the number was cut by nearly 80 percent. Taveras took office on Jan. 1, 2011 and informed media members at the news conference that Providence needs major sacrifices from retirees and the city's large tax-exempt institutions, including Brown University and the hospitals, in order to remain financially solvent. "Our firefighters, police officers, teachers and taxpayers have all sacrificed in the last year and helped Providence avoid catastrophe," he explained. "However, not everyone has sacrificed. The failure of our tax-exempts to sacrifice has left a $7.1 million hole in our budget." His thinly veiled shot at Brown was no surprise after he and Brown President Ruth Simmons clashed in December after the liberal arts school’s board rejected the mayor's request for an additional $4 million and Taveras spurned Simmons’ counteroffer of $2 million. The city was dealt another blow with a decision by Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter in which she sided with retirees and blocked the city from forcing its retired police and firefighters to sign up for Medicare. That decision is projected to cost the city $6 million and "has pushed the city to the brink of bankruptcy," Taveras said. He reminded those refusing to make sacrifices that they "can't be successful in a failed city," which Providence just might be by the time summer arrives………
- Wait……Iran can actually do something right when it comes to its space program? Unlike its bumbling nuclear program, the Iranian Space Agency appears mildly capable of occasional competence and proved as much by launching a small Earth-observing satellite into orbit Friday. The launch marked the country's first successful mission since a failed attempt to put a monkey in space last year and allow the monkey to die there after it was detained and imprisoned for participating in a public demonstration against despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime (just kidding on half of that statement and willing to allow you to guess which half). According to the Iranian Space Agency’s Farsi-language website, it successfully launched the new "Promise of Science and Industry" satellite into orbit using a Safir 1-B rocket. Safir means "Ambassador" in Farsi and the Safir rocket carried a satellite weighing 110 pounds and which was built by students at the Sharif University of Technology, according to a report by Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency. The satellite is shaped like a cube and is nearly 20 inches wide. It will circle Earth in an elliptical orbit and pass over Iran six times a day for two months. Ground stations in the cities of Karaj, Tabriz, Qeshm, Bushehr and Mashhad will control the satellite, which supposedly does not contain any nuclear weaponry to drop on unsuspecting Western nations below…………
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