September 8:
Taiwan’s National Communications Commission has again rejected Next Media’s applications for TV licenses for news, general affairs, and entertainment television channels. In Hong Kong Next Media owner Jimmy Lai’s outspoken Apple Daily and weekly Next Magazine investigative reporting on the mainland and scandals in politics, business and entertainment have proven successful. But the Next Media news channel’s reliance on animation and lack of “safeguards to protect children” were cited as the reasons for the Taiwan authorities rejection of the applications. Next Media, which was first rejected in December 2009, can restart the application process again, according to eTaiwan News.
September 15:
Pyongyang’s official state news agency KCNA reports that former President Kim Il Sung’s “unreserved assistance to the Chinese people helped them win victory in their revolution.” According to the report Kim supplied decisive “strategic and tactical advice weapons, ammunition, explosives, medicines, materials for military uniforms and shoes clearly indicated the way of winning a victory.” “Hundreds of thousands of North Korean soldiers displayed matchless heroism and self-sacrificing spirit in battlefields in Northeast China,” it said.
[Editor’s Note: While there is ample proof that Kim Il Sung fought with the anti-Japanese resistance in Northeast China, mainstream historians do not view his role as decisive. There were not hundreds of thousands of North Korean troops in China.]
Russian military counterintelligence officers in Irkutsk, Siberia have captured a Chinese citizen they accuse of illegally acquiring firearms from the Russian military for export to China. In the guise of a collector of Soviet memorabilia, the 49-year old man “sought to establish an undercover supply network delivering weapons abroad using criminal ties at the Chinese customs.” He was taken into custody after illegally purchasing a pistol for about $500 and agreeing to buy 20 AK-47 assault rifles from Russian military officers working for counterintelligence, Russia’s Interfax news agency reports.
September 17:
For the first time Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has conducted a joint maritime rescue drill with its PRC counterpart, the China's Maritime Search and Rescue Center, the official Beijing Review reports. The drill was held in waters off southeastern China, between Taiwan's Kinmen Island and the Chinese city of Xiamen. Boats and aircraft from Taiwan and China simulated the collision of two ships on the Kinmen-Xiamen route and saved passengers that fell into the sea. The CGA sent nine patrol boats, including a 500-ton patrol vessel, and helicopters for the drill. To avoid “unnecessary political disputes” all participating vessels and rescue teams carried flags that symbolized the joint drill, CGA officials said. Taiwan’s Former Deputy Minister of Defense Lin Chong-pin said that although the participants in the rescue drill are not from the military the event is a "positive signal" in the two sides' pursuit of mutual military trust, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reports.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Chairperson Lai Shin-yuan told the European Parliament in Brussels that Taiwan and China must enhance mutual trust before initiating political and military negotiations, but that now is not the right time. Lai said that the status quo in the Taiwan Strait remains "no unification, no independence, and no use of force." Lai said Taipei wants to build “a long-term peaceful environment across the strait that will be conducive to the country's development,” Focus Taiwan News Channel reports.
September 18:
To reduce its dependence on trade through the Malacca Strait, China is seeking to connect Yunan province to Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong with a direct road-rail link through Burma. Chinese firms will also help construct the Sonadia deep-sea port at Cox's Bazaar. The Times of India reports “a flurry of activity” between Beijing and Dhaka on the two projects over the last couple of months. Burma’s ruling junta has already agreed to the road and rail project and last month the governor of Yunnan province, Qin Guangrong, met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and promised his support. China has already forged extensive maritime links with eastern Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, among others.