FCCC March HAPPY HOUR

FCCC members are hereby ordered by legal decree (see Articles of Association, Act 537, Dec 2008 and amended heavily for detail ever since where appropriate) to promptly attend the monthly HAPPY HOUR this coming Friday at the evocatively named Scarlett Bar at G HOTEL, 6-30 till late.

We’ve changed the location this month to throw (ssshhhh!) you know who off the scent.

FCCC card-carriers ordering items numbers 1 thru 13 on the drinks menu with a knowing nod and wink may receive discount on selected beer, wine and spirits.

Anyone drinking or strolling towards the washrooms in a suspicious way will be subjected to gentle eviction by the Wangfujing Retail Therapy Enforcement Community (WFJRTEC).

TV camera crews short of revolutionary goon footage beware: Be nice to the trainee teenage bell hops or you will be denied your drinks’ discount card. The above is classified material.

Eat after reading, wash down with nice cup of jasmine tea.

See you there. No cameras. Oh, okay. Just one or two.

Yours, with a polite shove toward the bar, THE FCCC MANAGEMENT

FCCC Happy Hours are brought to you by Grey Area Entertainment Ltd.

VENUE: Scarlett Wine Bar at Hotel G, No. A7 Gongti Xilu, 工体西路甲7号
DATE: Friday, March 11
TIME: 6:30pm onwards
ENTRANCE: Free. Non-members very welcome as always.

Despite his best efforts to protect his camera it was confiscated. More than a dozen other journalists who went to this part of Beijing to report had problems, including being manhandled, pushed, detained and delayed by uniformed police and others.

The FCCC, on behalf of its members, calls on the Chinese government to ensure the physical safety of all reporters and their staff while carrying out assignments in China.

The FCCC Board

Some correspondents have been told to register at a Wangfujing district office for permission to report there. This office does not appear to have a listed number and the PSB was unable to provide one to correspondents who asked.

The FCCC is concerned about and monitoring arbitrary interpretation of the reporting regulations. Please inform us if you are blocked from reporting in public space. China’s reporting regulations, which took effect in Oct. 2008, state: “To interview organizations or individuals in China, foreign journalists need only to obtain their prior consent.”

The FCCC Board

Correspondents should be careful if they attempt to enter the village of activist Chen Guangcheng in Shandong Province.

In recent days several correspondents have encountered groups of violent, plainclothes thugs.

Operating in groups of more than a dozen, these men are carrying walkie talkies and blocking all entrances to Dong Shu Gu village. They have pushed reporters around, threatened them with bricks, damaged their cars, confiscated or destroyed their equipment and taken their press credentials.

In one case, the local police – whose office is only 10 minutes away – were called by reporters but did not come to their aid. Since being told about the incidents the police appear to have done nothing to rectify the situation or rein in these groups of thugs.

Correspondents who have been harassed in recent days include representatives of Le Monde, CNN, The New York Times, Radio France International and Le Nouvel Observateur.

To avoid potential danger we urge anybody planning to visit Dong Shu Gu village to first speak to other reporters who have been there.

For more information, please see the New York Times and CNN.

http://”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/world/asia/19china.html

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-16/world/china.chen_1_chen-guangcheng-chinese-human-rights-lawyer-camera?_s=PM:WORLD

The Foreign Ministry is organizing a series of trips to Western China including Tibet. The registration deadline for the first trip is this Friday, June 11.

For more information and to register for this and other trips, please see the website of the International Press Center, at http://ipc.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/.

The FCCC Board

President: Stephen McDonell (ABC News)
Vice President: Lucy Hornby (Reuters)
Secretary: Kathleen McLaughlin (BNA)
Treasurer: Tze-Wei Ng (SCMP)

General Board Members:
Jocelyn Ford (US Public Radio)
Peter Ford (The Christian Science Monitor)
Andreas Lorenz (Der Spiegel)
Peter Simpson (Daily Mail)
Richard Stone (Science Magazine)

Associate Board Member:
Giorgio Magistrelli (Consultant to Embassy of Malta)

The outgoing board would like to say thanks to all FCCC members for your support over the past year.

Yahoo has not answered the FCCC’s questions about the attacks, nor has it told individual email users how the accounts were accessed. Password security and malware are ongoing concerns, but it’s unclear whether they are related to this case.

We recommend that you take particular care with any information sent by email, especially with any sensitive information sent via Yahoo accounts. Check your privacy and forwarding settings in all web-based mail (found in Yahoo under “mail options”). Change your secure passwords frequently, but please remain aware that this mode of communication ultimately can’t be considered private.

The FCCC reminds you that email does not appear to be secure in China, and that alternate means of arranging interviews and conducting other sensitive business are often preferable.

For tips on creating a strong password, please see: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-10310092-238.html

The FCCC has previously notified members to be cautious about malicious email attachments and provided some guidance on making Gmail secure. There have also been incidents in which the email of foreign correspondents’ local assistants have been targeted.

Malicious email attachments sent to foreign correspondents in China tend to increase around big news events and sensitive political dates. In addition to the Expo messages, the overall volume of malware messages sent to foreign correspondents appears to have grown this week.

Please note: .pdf attachments, often assumed to be harmless, have become a common mode of spreading this type of malware. We suggest caution in handling every attachment you receive, especially as these attacks grow more sophisticated. Regular anti-virus software does not typically pick up these types of malware. If you’re unsure whether an email attachment is safe, you can check here.

More information on email attacks against foreign correspondents in China is available here. Gmail users can find information here.

Here is how you can check if your Gmail has been compromised:

• Log into your Gmail account
• Click “Settings” in the upper right hand corner. Then click on the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab.
• Look at the forwarding section. If there’s a mysterious email address you can’t recognize, then
  that’s cause for concern.
• You can check “disable forwarding” to stop future emails from being sent to this address, though other steps may also be necessary to make your account secure.

We remind all members that journalists in China have been particular targets of hacker attacks in the last two years. Please be very careful about what links you click on, what email attachments you open, and do run virus checks regularly.

If you have been hacked, please let the FCCC know at fcccadmin@gmail.com. We can help put you in touch with experts to run diagnostics.

Some things you can do generally to improve security:

• Access Gmail through a secure HTTP connection: https://mail.google.com. (The extra ‘s’ means secure). Make sure always use https is checked in Gmail’s settings, under General>Browser connection.
• Change your passwords.
• Keep up to date with software patches and updates.

Here is one recent example:

From: Pam [mailto:pam.bourdon@yahoo.com]
Subject: Trip to Beijing

Please can you both confirm that you received this e-mail I sent a few days ago. Given recent e-mail problems I am worried that it has gone astray yet again.

Dear,

I am the economics editor of The Straits Times. I plan to be in Beijing October 2nd, (arriving late evening) to research the annual world economy survey.
I was suggested that you would be able to help me fix up some interviews.
I attach a list of people I would like to meet with. I would be happy with just 6-7 interviews during my stay, so don’t worry if some of them are away. If a lot of my chosen economists are unavailable, I will have a few more names.
I think that they are all Chinese speakers, but please check for me as I find that discussing technical economics through a translator does not work very well.

I will be staying at the China World Hotel, No. 1 Jian Guo Men Wai Avenue .
From past experience, it would be good if meetings could be grouped to minimise getting stuck in bad traffic!

The subject I am researching is the implications for the world economy, and in particular the developed economies, of the increasing
global importance of China, India and the other emerging economies. How is the increased weight in the world of emerging economies affecting growth rates, jobs, wages, profits, commodity prices, inflation, interest rates, asset prices, capital flows and exchange rates? Who will be the winners and losers in this new economy?

Please let me know if you need any more information.
And thank you in advance for helping me arange my trip.

Best regards

Pam