World reacts to Michael Jackson death

With the death of pop star Michael Jackson at the age of 50, BBC correspondents report on the reaction around the world.

STEVE ROSENBERG, BERLIN
I'm standing in the waxwork museum Madame Tussauds in Berlin where the Michael Jackson waxwork has been moved into the foyer. There is a special book of condolences which visitors can sign after coming into the museum.
The waxwork museum is almost directly opposite the Adlon hotel. This is where Michael Jackson stayed in 2002 when he came to Berlin to pick up a music award.
And it's where he very controversially dangled his own baby out of a top floor window, showing off the child to fans down below.
At the time, German police considered launching an investigation into the affair. They never did and despite the incident Michael Jackson remains supremely popular in Germany.
Reacting to the news of Michael Jackson's death the German economy minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, said the pop star had been a truly great artist who met a tragic end.

ZUBAIR AHMED, MUMBAI
Television networks in India abandoned normal programmes to run news of Michael Jackson's death.
Popular news websites and portals have wall-to-wall coverage of the pop star's death. Mourners have been posting condolence messages on their favourite websites.
The singer, who was a huge name in India, had come to Mumbai 13 years ago when he performed at a packed concert.
He was invited by a right-wing Hindu nationalist party and his visit had become controversial, with some questioning how his music was connected to Hindu culture.
Regardless of the controversy, a whole generation of Bollywood music directors have been influenced by his music.
Some have been accused of plagiarising his tunes. His dance sequences have also left a deep impression on Bollywood stars of the 70s and 80s.

NICK BRYANT, SYDNEY
On the east coast of Australia people awoke to the news that Michael Jackson had suffered a cardiac arrest, and heard that he'd died by the time they reached work.
The main television networks have been interrupting their schedules to carry special programmes, radio stations are playing some of his most popular hits, and fans are leaving tributes on web and social networking sites.
Walking through the streets of Sydney this morning, his signature song Thriller could be heard coming from passing cars.
People here are likening his death to the passing of other musical greats, such as Elvis Presley and John Lennon.
There's been a conflicted response. There's enormous respect here for his musical talent and his extraordinary stagecraft, but there's been criticism too at what many people clearly feel was a sometimes unhealthy relationship with young children.

ROLAND BUERK, TOKYO
Japanese television networks broke into normal breakfast programmes to carry coverage of Michael Jackson's death, and a text alert was sent early in the morning to people who subscribe to mobile phone news services.
The singer was a huge star in Japan - a country he visited often over the years. It was here in 2006 that he made his first official public appearance, at an awards ceremony, after being acquitted at his trial.
He came again a year later and a screaming mob of fans greeted him at the airport. There were more crowds outside a downtown electronics store where he went on a shopping spree.
And hundreds of people paid more than $3,000 for a ticket for what was known as a fan appreciation event.
It featured a buffet dinner, Michael Jackson impersonators, and a chance to be in the same room as the singer himself - but not to see him to perform.
Michael Jackson's popularity was perhaps knocked less here by the scandals that surrounded him later in life.
People in Japan seemed more willing to overlook his much-publicised troubles and see him just as a great performer, and that's how he'll be remembered.


JONAH FISHER, JOHANNESBURG
Michael Jackson first visited Africa at the age of 14, as the lead singer of the Jackson Five.
Emerging from the plane in Senegal, he responded to a welcome of drummers and dancers by screaming: ''This is where I come from''.
Returning for an African tour 19 years later, the king of pop was crowned chief of several African villages.
But the trip quickly turned into a public relations nightmare, amid allegations of police beating the crowds and complaints in the local media that the pop star had been seen holding his nose.
Michael Jackson's most tangible contribution to Africa came at the peak of his career in the mid-80s, when he co-wrote the charity song We Are The World with Lionel Ritchie.

Sung by a group of leading artists, the single topped charts around the world, raising awareness and more than $50m for famine relief in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/8120505.stm

Published: 2009/06/26 12:56:05 GMT

World mourns death of Michael Jackson. Web slows to halt!

Web slows after Jackson's death By Maggie Shiels,Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson's death.

Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack.

Millions of people who Googled the star's name were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results.
It warned users "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application".

"It's true that between approximately 2.40PM Pacific and 3.15PM Pacific, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson and saw the error page," said Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker.
It was around this time that the singer was officially pronounced dead.
Google's trends page showed that searches for Michael Jackson had reached such a volume that in its so called "hotness" gauge the topic was rated "volcanic".
The BBC news website reported that traffic to the site at 0400 BST was 48% higher than average.

Google was not the only company overwhelmed by the public's clamour for information.
The microblogging service Twitter crashed with the sheer volume of people using the service. Queries about the star soon rocketed to the top of its updates and searches. But the amount of traffic meant it suffered one of its well-known outages.

Before the company's servers crashed, TweetVolume noted that "Michael Jackson" appeared in more than 66,500 Twitter updates.

According to initial data from Trendrr, a Web service that tracks activity on social media sites, the number of Twitter posts Thursday afternoon containing "Michael Jackson" totaled more than 100,000 per hour.
That put news of Jackson's death at least on par with the Iran protests, as Twitter posts about Iran topped 100,000 per hour on June 16 and eventually climbed to 220,000 per hour.

Early reports of Mr Jackson's death and the confusion surrounding it caused a rash of changes and corrections to be made on his Wikipedia page as editors tried to keep up with events and the number of people trying to update the page.
TMZ, the popular celebrity gossip site that broke the story following a tip-off that a paramedic had visited the singers home also crashed.
There was a domino effect as users then fled to other sites. Hollywood gossip writer Perez Hilton's site was among those to flame out.

Keynote Systems reported that its monitoring showed performance problems for the web sites of AOL, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo.
Beginning at 2.30PM Pacific "the average speed for downloading news sites doubled from less than four seconds to almost nine seconds," said Shawn White, Keynote's director of external operations.

He told Data Center Knowledge that "during the same period, the average availability of sites on the index dropped from almost 100% to 86%".

Burqa Ban in France

French Wants To Study Burqa Wear, May Ban It In Public By Jenny Barshfield AP-PARIS

France wants to study the small but growing trend of burqa wear, with an eye to possibly banning the Islamic garment from being worn in public, the government's spokesman said Friday.

Luc Chatel told France-2 television that the government would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing the burqa and other fully covering gowns outside the home.

"If we find that use of the burqa was very clearly imposed (on women) ... we would draw the appropriate conclusions," Chatel said. Asked whether that could mean legislation banning the burqa in France, he responded "why not?"

In France, the terms "burqa" and "niqab" often are used interchangeably. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black.
Chatel's comments have helped revive debate about whether wear of Islamic garments is appropriate in France, a country with a long and proud secular tradition.

In 2004, a law banning the Islamic headscarf and other highly visible religious symbols from French public schools sparked a heated debate on the issue. Proponents insisted such a ban was necessary to ensure France's schools remain strictly secular, while some Muslims countered the law specifically targeted them and unduly punished Muslim girls.

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Friday that having a parliamentary commission study the issue would be a "good way" to find out how extensively burqas and niqabs are worn in France --and what response might be adequate.

She conceded that legislating on what people can and cannot wear in public was a spiny matter, and also acknowledged it would be difficult to determine whether women wore the full-body veils because they were forced to or because they wanted to, Alliot-Marie said.

"It's a relatively complex problem," she told reporters.
The head of France's opposition Socialist party dismissed the issue, saying that in the middle of the global financial crisis, the country's legislators have more pressing matters to deal with.
France, which once held colonies throughout North Africa, has Western Europe's largest Muslim population. Muslims represent an estimated 5 million of the nation's 63 million people.
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AP Reports: World's Oldest Man Dies At 113

TOKYO (AP) — Tomoji Tanabe, the world's oldest man, died in his sleep at his home in southern Japan on Friday, a city official said. He was 113.

"He died peacefully. His family members were with him," said Junko Nakao, a city official in Miyakonojo on Japan's southern island of Kyushu. Tanabe died of heart failure, she said.

Tanabe, who was born Sept. 18, 1895, had eight children — five sons and three daughters. The former city land surveyor also had 25 grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren, according to a statement from the Miyakonojo city. He was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest man when he was 111 years old.

Tanabe lived with his fifth son and daughter-in-law.

His favorite meals were fried shrimp and Japanese miso soup with clams, the statement said. Tanabe drank milk every morning and read the newspaper. He also avoided alcohol and did not smoke, the statement said.


The city's mayor, Makoto Nagamine, said Tanabe was "the symbol of the Miyakonojo known as a city of long life."

"I feel very saddened by his death," Nagamine said in a statement. "He cheered many citizens."

Japanese people have among the world's longest life expectancies — nearly 86 years for women and 79 years for men — which is often attributed to the country's healthy diet rich in fish and rice.

The number of Japanese living past 100 has more than doubled in the last six years, reaching a record high of 36,000 people in 2008. The country's centenarian ranks are dominated by women, who make up 86% of the total.

Japan's centenarian population is expected to reach nearly 1 million — the world's largest — by 2050, according to U.N. projections.

China’s Boys Only Policy Backfires on Would-Be Grooms

A generation of obese, overindulged, self centered males, who are unable to find wives are some of the anticipated results of China’s mandatory one-child policy.

Since 1979, China’s China's National Population and Family Planning Commission has strictly implemented a one-child policy designed to to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China. Since then, authorities claim that the policy has prevented more than 250 million births.

Preferring male offspring, the Chinese society is highly motivated to takes measures to produce male heirs. Such measures include forced abortions of female fetuses, female infanticide, trafficking in female babies, and “arranged disappearances” of girls.


As these males reach adulthood and seek to find a bride, some encounter a new form of confidence game. Some fall victim to scams designed to generate high prices for brides.

Here is a Wall Street Journal article that highlights this growing trend:

By MEI FONG
XIN'AN VILLAGE, HANZHONG, China -- With no eligible women in his village, Zhou Pin, 27 years old, thought he was lucky to find a pretty bride whom he met and married within a week, following the custom in rural China.
Ten days later, Cai Niucuo vanished, leaving behind her clothes and identity papers. She did not, however, leave behind her bride price: 38,000 yuan, or about $5,500, which Mr. Zhou and his family had scrimped and borrowed to put together.
When Mr. Zhou reported his missing spouse to authorities, he found his situation wasn't unique. In the first two months of this year, Hanzhong town saw a record number of scams designed to extract high bride prices in a region with an oversupply of bachelors.

The fleeing Mrs. Zhou was one of 11 runaway brides -- hardly the isolated case or two that the town had seen in years past. The local phenomenon has fueled broader speculation among officials that the fast-footed wives may be part of a larger criminal ring.

"She called me soon after she left," says Mr. Zhou, a slight man with a tentative smile. He says she asked how he was doing, and apologized for the hardship she had caused. "I told her, 'I will see you again one day.' "
Thanks to its 30-year-old population-planning policy and customary preference for boys, China has one of the largest male-to-female ratios in the world. Using data from the 2005 China census -- the most recent -- a study published in last month's British Journal of Medicine estimates there was a surplus of 32 million males under the age of 20 at the time the census was taken. That's roughly the size of Canada's population.

Now some of these men have reached marriageable age, resulting in intense competition for spouses, especially in rural areas. It also appears to have caused a sharp spike in bride prices and betrothal gifts. The higher prices are even found in big cities such as Tianjin.

A study by Columbia University economist Shang-Jin Wei found that some areas in China with a high proportion of males have an above-average savings rate, even after accounting for factors such as education levels, income and life-expectancy rates. Areas with more men than women, the study notes, also have low spending rates -- suggesting that many rural Chinese may be saving up for bride prices.
China's cultural preference for boys has resulted in a dearth of marriageable brides. Some Chinese young women are scamming rural bridegrooms by accepting proposals and betrothal payments, then absconding with the dowry. Mei Fong reports from China.

Curbing consumption in hopes of connubial pleasure is increasingly the norm in Xin'an Village, or New Peace Village, a lushly verdant spot with 14,000 people, located in central China's Shaanxi province. The village has over 30 men of marriageable age, but no single women.
As in other parts of the country, village customs dictate the groom's family pay the bride's family a set amount -- known as cai li -- while the bride furnishes a dowry of mostly simple household items.

In the 1980s, before the start of China's economic reforms, cai li sums were small.
"When I married, my husband just bought me several sets of clothes," recalls Zhang Shufen, Mr. Zhou's mother.

In the 1990s, cai li prices rose to several thousand yuan (about $200 to $400 at today's conversion rates), mirroring the country's growing prosperity. But it was only starting in 2002-03 that villagers noticed a sharp spike in cai li prices, which shot up to between 6,000 to 10,000 yuan -- several years' worth of farming income.

Not coincidentally, this was also the period when the first generation of children since the family-planning policy was launched in 1979 started reaching marriageable age.

So the normally frugal Xin'an villagers began saving even more in anticipation of rising wedding costs. While the Zhous are fairly well-off by village standards, they had been scrimping for years, growing their own vegetables and eating mainly rice and noodles, with little meat. The family had curbed spending in anticipation of wedding costs for their son who was working in southern Chinese factories. The hope was that he would return with a prospective mate in tow.
But when the younger Mr. Zhou returned home a year ago, he was still single. "In our village, when a boy is older than 24, 25, it is a shame on him for not marrying," says his mother.

Last December a family friend told his mother that her nephew recently married a girl from neighboring Sichuan province. The bride had three female friends visiting her, who might be interested in marrying local men, said this friend.
Encouraged, Mr. Zhou and his mother met the three girls the next day. After an hour's chat with the trio, who claimed to be ages 23, 25 and 27, Mr. Zhou found himself drawn to the prettiest and youngest, Ms. Cai, who had angular features and an ivory complexion.

He proposed marriage. She agreed, with one proviso: cai li of 38,000 yuan, or roughly five years' worth of farm income. The Zhous agreed, but took the precaution of running a quick background check. Tang Yunshou, Xin'an's Communist Party secretary, said Ms. Cai's identity and residential papers checked.
Three days later the couple registered their union at the local registrar's office. They posed for studio shots, with the bride in a creamy satin gown, the groom in a tuxedo. In one shot, they wear traditional garb, the bride pretending to light a string of firecrackers. Mr. Zhou mugs a grimace, hands to his ears.
They held the wedding banquet a week later, on Jan. 4, where Mr Zhou's mother formally handed over the dowry -- half of it loans from family members -- to a woman she believed to be Ms. Cai's cousin.

The new bride took up residence with her in-laws, and quickly found favor with her diligent and respectful ways, said Mrs. Zhou. "I treated her better than my own daughter," she said. A red electric scooter, with ribbons on the handles, sits in the living room, a wedding present for Ms. Cai.

Matrimony was catching. Two neighbors sought Ms. Cai out, and asked her to act as matchmaker for their sons. Ms. Cai recommended two girls within a few days. The neighbors each paid 40,000 yuan in cai li.

On Jan. 28, all these brides vanished, leaving the villagers reeling.
While there are no nationwide statistics, wedding scams have occurred before, but usually isolated cases. Mr. Tang, Xin'an's Communist Party secretary, says he has never before seen such clusters of cases. Most of the 11 families involved lost an average of 40,000 yuan. Officials consider these to be fraud cases. So if caught, the women could serve jail time, according to police.
Meanwhile, Mr. Zhou is still lovelorn. "I feel I can't hate her," says the deserted husband, who is now so depressed his parents have forbidden him to leave the village, as he longs to. "She must have her own troubles."

—Gao Sen contributed to this article.
Write to Mei Fong at mei.fong@wsj.com

Eloquence, Excellence, and The Golden Rule

I just invested an hour to watch President Obama’s speech at Cairo University. Once again, he demonstrated excellence in crafting and delivering a powerful and relevant message. He emphasized the principles of peace, respect and human dignity. He spoke candidly about seven core issues: 1) Violent Extremism, 2) The Israel/Palestine Conflict, 3) Nuclear Arms, 4) Democracy, 5) Religious Freedom, 6) Women’s Rights and 7) Economic Development. He made strong points about what unites all nations, all religions, and all humanity—The Golden Rule. He quoted from The Christian Bible, Muslim Koran, and The Jewish Talmud.

China Blocks Twitter Service Ahead of T. Square Anniversary

By Lucy Hornby BEIJING (Reuters)
Access to the popular social networking service Twitter and email service Hotmail was blocked across mainland China late on Tuesday afternoon, two days before the twentieth anniversary of a bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square.

Indignant users filled chatrooms with protest, after access to Twitter was denied shortly after 5:00 pm (0900 GMT) on Tuesday.
"The whole Twitter community in China has been exploding with it," said Beijing-based technology commentator Kaiser Kuo.

"It's just part of life here. If anything surprises me, it's that it took them so long."

Thursday is the twentieth anniversary of June 4, 1989, when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square before dawn to quell weeks of protest by students and workers. China has never released a death toll from the crackdown on what it classes as a "counter-revolutionary" conspiracy.

Other Internet users reported not being able to access Windows Live, a service offered by Microsoft Corp. which also owns Hotmail, and also Flickr, an online photo sharing service owned by Yahoo.

"This is so frustrating. Now I feel China is exactly the same as Iran," said a financial professional and avid Twitter user in Shanghai, referring to Iran's May ban of popular social networking site Facebook.

Twitter is an Internet-based text message service that allows users to post updates -- called "tweets" -- of no more than 140 characters.
Users in Beijing reported accessing the service without difficulty earlier on Tuesday, and even successfully searching potentially sensitive words such as "Tiananmen."

While professional and urban Chinese often use foreign Internet tools, including Twitter, Hotmail and Facebook, the vast majority of Chinese use similar domestic services that are carefully monitored for any sign of content deemed subversive.
Access to video-sharing site YouTube, owned by Google was blocked in China in March, after overseas Tibetan groups posted graphic footage of China's crackdown on protests by Tibetans in 2008.

(Additional reporting by George Chen in Hong Kong; Editing by David Fox)