Blogs

Today, Chinese authorities executed a Japanese man for drug smuggling. This marks the first execution of a Japanese national in China since the two countries normalized relations in 1972. Officials in Beijing also made Japanese politicians aware that they are scheduling three more executions of Japanese prisoners this week.

From :

This happened today 29/03/2010

The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that the charge of aggravated breach of trust leveled by the Nova administrators against former Nova president, Nozomu Sahashi, has been dismissed.

Thanks to a kind reader, I received a copy of Ernst & Young's report to creditors on the closure of GEOS Melbourne. Many comments have been made about how GEOS siphoned its Australia schools dry, and the report offers an explanation as to how that happened. I've summarized key parts of the report to illustrate why GEOS Melbourne suddenly went into voluntary administration.

A few readers asked for a separate thread for discussion about GEOS Oceania given recent developments. Good idea. Use this thread for discussing GEOS Oceania.

If you haven't heard by now, the Immigration Bureau has officially deleted Guideline 8 and replaced it with:

The Fukuoka General Union has a long read titled The ALT Scam that points out the problems with BOEs outsourcing ALT jobs.

The main points are:

Cheng Yonghua kicked-off a new diplomatic mission to Tokyo this morning. The new Ambassador arrived on Sunday and will be busy from the beginning. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is planning on making an official state visit to Japan in the spring. The announcement of Cheng as Beijing's representative to Japan is expected, in some ways to bridge the divide between the two major economies of Asia.

Since there are more than 300 comments in the GEOS Rumours thread, I've decided to close the thread and start a fresh one here.

This is going to leave a mark:

China's Education Ministry on Sunday warned students considering studying overseas against Australian schools run by the GEOS group after more than 40 Chinese students were left stranded with the group's collapse.

More than 2,300 students in GEOS group schools across Australia were affected after the college closures. The schools were scattered across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Cairns.