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Some 200 people on Sunday expressed disagreement with anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism in a Goodwill March that passed through the former Jewish Town and continued with a meeting in a Prague garden where a report on anti-Semitism in the country last year was read.

Speakers drew attention to the danger of all manifestations of xenophobia and penetration of neo-Nazism into society through political parties.

According to the report which was read by Tomas Kraus, secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities (FZO), there were 44 manifestations of anti-Semitism, which is a slight increase over the previous year, but their structure differed.

The number of attacks on a person and property was the same in both years — one and two, respectively. And the number of harassment increased from 10 to 14, Kraus said.

“There was an enormous growth in anti-Semitic literature that is alarming,” he said, adding that the number rose from 12 in 2007to 24 last year.

Kraus said the attack on a Jewish man which took place on the anniversary of Kristallnacht when European rabbis had their conference in Prague, was unprecedented. The perpetrators were given suspended one-and-a-half-year sentences.

Kraus also recalled the activities of the extreme-right Workers’ Party (DS) last year.

“It offered neo-Nazis the feared opportunity to ‘filter through’ public life,” Kraus said, adding that this trend copies the situation in Germany. Neo-Nazis offered the DS media attention and shouldered responsibility for violent actions that would be worse tolerable in case of a political party.

The neo-Nazi movement has markedly developed after years of professionalization, and it maintains standard international cooperation particularly with German neo-Nazis, said Kraus.

Sunday’s march in Prague was held within the Europe against anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism event, marking Yom HaShoah, the day when Holocaust victims are commemorated.

Asia, excluding the Chinese mainland, was experiencing larger-than-expected impacts from the global financial turmoil via trade links, and was likely to see economic recovery by mid-2010, said an IMF official on Friday.

“We expect that the recovery will come for Asia, excluding China, by the middle of next year,” Joshua Felman, assistant director of Asia and Pacific Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in an interview with Xinhua in Hong Kong.

Felman, who made a presentation on IMF’s latest regional economic outlook report for Asia and the Pacific, said the economic situation in Asia, generally speaking, had stabilized, and things would gradually improve, although recovery would take much longer.

“China will start to rebound much more quickly. In fact, it maybe rebounding even now, because the government is spending so much money to help lift the economy,” he said.

But Vivek Arora, senior resident representative of IMF in China, was quick to sound a cautious note, saying that it was still too early to make a definite judgment that the China was already on the way to a full recovery, although there had been signs that the worst might have been over.

In fact, the IMF report cautioned against over optimism and even adjusted its forecasts for the regional economy downward significantly.

The impacts from export slowdown on the Asian economies had been larger than expected, it said.

Emerging Asia, including China’s Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, among others, suffered a decrease of no less than 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, said the IMF report.

Moreover, the impacts were likely to carry into the next couple of years, dimming the medium economic outlook to some extent, the report argued.

Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, said he agreed with the views of IMF, adding the situation at present for China was largely different from the export slowdowns followed by quick rebounds in 1997-1998 and 2001-2002.

The drive from export growth was likely to remain weak over the medium term and it remains to see whether domestic demand growth was sustainable, he added.

Other economists, however, disagreed with the pessimism.

Sharp export slowdowns were more likely to be followed by quick rebounds, and the short-term outlook was not that negative, said Michael Spencer, managing director, chief economist and head of global markets research Asia Pacific, Deutsche Bank.

Arora said China was now on the right way in policy directions although challenges remained as to whether the surges in domestic demands would be sustainable.

Spencer, however, said he believed China would be able to get domestic demand to work as an economic engine, although it might take a long period of time.

Spencer also cautioned against oversupply of bank lendings, which he said was likely to do more harm than good if the trend of rapid growth continues into next year.

The IMF, however, maintained it was key to keep the credit financing system at work, as the credit condition in general remained fragile.

Mexico’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that deaths from the new influenza A/H1N1 in the country have increased to 72 from 70 on Monday, while the total confirmed infections have reached 3,648.

The new figures were released at 9:00 a.m. local time (1500 GMT), with no further details. Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, who usually briefed the media at early morning press conferences, is currently in Geneva for the 62nd World Health Assembly (WHA).

Before his departure, Cordova had predicted that there would be a declining trend in the number of confirmed cases in the country, as the epidemic was close to being controlled.

However, he also stressed that this week would be vital for the development of the situation.

The figures updated on a daily basis often include testing results of samples taken weeks ago, delayed due to the limited lab capacity.

Despite the economic recession, Americans seem willing to spend on high definition television (HDTV) technology with more than one-third households in the United States now have the new TV sets, marketing information company Nielsen said in a report released on Friday.

The report found that as of February 2009, 33.3 percent of U.S.TV homes had at least one HDTV set, a substantial increase over February 2008 when only 19.3 percent of homes owned one.

“Not since color TV was introduced more than 50 years ago has anew TV technology been so rapidly adopted,” Nielsen said.

According to the report, Asian homes in the United States had the greatest HDTV penetration rate of 41.8 percent, followed by white households of 34.3 percent.

The switch to HDTV doesn’t necessarily mean that households are ditching their old standard TV sets, the report said, noting that on average each U.S. household now has 2.6 TV sets.

HDTV-capable homes are simply re-locating the old TV sets to bedrooms and the basement, and may use them for a dedicated purpose, such as video gaming, the report showed.

“It’s clear that despite the current economic climate, HD remains on course to become the benchmark in TV viewing,” Steve McGowan, a senior vice president at Nielsen, said in a statement.

“As prices of HDTVs continue to fall — a trend that might accelerate in the current environment — and circumstances such as the digital transition create new opportunities to promote the sets and programming, HDTV will continue to gain a greater foothold in U.S. television homes,” he added.

U.S. federal law requires that by June 12, 2009, the nearly 1,800 full-power television stations in the country must all stop broadcasting in analog format and broadcast only in digital format.

Soon after U.S. Airways flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River in New York in January, Janis Krums from Florida posted the first photo on Twitter from his iPhone, which was 34 minutes faster than any traditional media had done. Scholars call it “citizen journalism” which is challenging the traditional journalism in the United States.

In the digital age, almost everyone can be a journalist. While traditional journalists should receive formal training of news reporting and editing, citizen journalists do not need any journalism training. There are many ways for them to publish their information. Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Flickr and even their cell phones have become the new media to distribute information.

Professionals held that internet and cell phones have changed and are changing the way of news gathering and distribution, thus will change people’s way of life.

The trend is, traditional media have started to embrace citizen journalism. In the case of the U.S. Airways crash, TV stations and other media interviewed Krums live and his photo was used by many news organizations.

Traditional news outlets such as magazines and newspapers are being called “legacy media,” while citizen journalism is generally considered by many as “crowd-powered media.” But even the conservative media such as the Washington Times has started to embrace citizen journalism.

Since April the Washington Times launched one full print page per day of news stories reported and written by average citizens in local communities. The move has been seen by American journalists as a new take on a traditional idea.

The paper held that community-driven news has been a long mainstay in American newspapers. News stories contributed by non-professional journalists will give new input to the readers and become one important channel for the newspaper to reach out to the community.

Although the newspaper said stories provided by citizen journalists would have the same criteria as those provided by professional journalists, there are people who doubt that the quality would be the same.

The idea of community journalism in a print format is actually a new take on an old tradition, said Al Tomkins, a media analyst with the Poynter Institute.

“Rural and county newspapers, community weeklies — they always had space devoted to the community news, written by someone local. That kind of coverage was and still is incredibly popular,” Tomkins said.

“It takes its inspiration from a simpler time. But it remains an effective way to give a voice to the voiceless,” he added.

Some professional journalists and scholars held that citizen journalism is a gift to journalism, professional journalists and people all over the world.

They held that citizen journalists can cover far more ground than professional journalists and can provide coverage of events as they happen in real time and not afterwards. It is impossible for any media to send reporters to everywhere, but billions of people are everywhere. That’s the power of citizen journalism.

Professional journalists also held that citizen journalism can not replace in-depth reporting anytime soon. Citizen journalism offers the ability to cover breaking news better than professional journalists ever could, which would be faster, better, uncensored and in real-time.

Wherever news breaks, there are always people around, but there aren’t always journalists around. When these people are armed with mobile devices with internet access, they can post text, photos and videos from anywhere.

Professional journalists do not worry about being replaced by citizen journalists because it is very unlikely untrained citizen journalists would do investigative and other in-depth reporting. Therefore most likely citizen journalists will bring the what, while professionals will bring the why.

Some worried that citizen journalists could be irresponsible and could be misleading with biased or even wrong information. Since they have not received any professional training, how can they be trusted and how can readers trust stories provided by them?

Some scholars suggested that right now it is better for the major media to open “citizen units” that integrate citizen contributions to their stories. Videos, images, documents and other essential sources that wouldn’t normally be accessed by a trained journalist could be integrated that way.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Tuesday that China will provide a 10-billion-U.S. dollar credit loan to member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to shore up their economies amid the global financial crisis.

China will also organize visits by trade and investment promotion delegations to other SCO member states to boost two-way trade and investment, Hu said in a speech at the organization’s summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Hu reiterated that China will adhere to its commitments and continue to support multilateral and bilateral cooperation within the framework of the SCO.

In face of the international financial crisis, China has adopted an active fiscal policy and a moderately loose currency policy, Hu said.

China has also worked out a package of economic stimulus plans as part of efforts to further boost domestic demand and promote the economy’s stable and relatively fast development, Hu said.

He said China has also made great efforts to tap the domestic market, especially the rural market, implement industrial adjustments and revitalize plans on a large scale, work hard to push forward with scientific innovation and technical revamping, and strengthen efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reinforce environmental protection.

So far, the measures have achieved positive results, Hu said.

He said although the international financial crisis continues to rear its ugly head, the basic trend and the long-term promising outlook of the Chinese economy has not changed.

Keeping a stable and relatively fast development of the Chinese economy will have a positive influence on SCO members, the regional economy, as well as the world economy, he said.

Hu said China adheres to the path of peaceful development, and as always, China will pursue an independent foreign policy of peace and abide by a policy of friendship and partnership with neighboring countries.

He said China will join hands with other countries to face the challenges, share opportunities, and make greater contributions to regional and world peace and development.

A list of graduate millionaires published recently has attracted media attention and also public controversy.

The List of Richest College Graduates with their Own Business was jointly issued by the Chinese University Alumni website and 21st Century Report on June 24, with the average fortune of the 100 rich college graduates on the list amounting to 2.6 million yuan (380,380 U.S. dollars), local Beijing Times reported Tuesday. Most enterprises on the list are small-scale start-up companies and are in their initial stages, with no competitiveness with mature large companies in terms of scale and capital, the newspaper said.

The IT industry is the favorite choice when graduates decide to start their own businesses. 40 percent of the enterprises on the list are IT-related. Among the top 10, eight are in the IT industry.

Regarding funding, 90 percent of those listed raised funds by themselves and 10 percent obtained financial aid from their parents. Research findings show that 20 percent received venture capital from foundations or banks.

Of those on the list, 79 are of the post-1980s generation, 20 the post-1970s generation and one the post-1990s generation.

Jin Jin and Ding Shiyuan stand out on the list. Jin set up one of the largest web-games enterprises in Zhejiang Province and ranks No. 1 on the list with a total wealth of 1 billion yuan. Ding owns a culture-related company in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province and he is the only one born in the 1990s on the list.

Jin, a new IT industry engine

Jin Jin, 25, who founded games company Ferry Network in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, tops the list. He turned an initial investment of 5,000 yuan (731 U.S. dollars) into one billion within two years, China News Service reported.

When he was a boy, Jin adored online games so much that his parents always knew where to find him - in the game room. Yet he is different from other game lovers, and was always thinking about how to make money from playing games.

Established in 2005, Ferry Game has set up 11 offices all over China, its self-developed 3D online games are the favorites of millions of young people in major Chinese cities.

“My friends and I had an agreement at high school that we would set up our own on-line game publisher after graduation. Now we’ve made it earlier than that,” Jin told China News Service.

Jin said he and his company are both “made in Hangzhou.” “It is Hangzhou that helps to make it possible,” he said.

The city’s development of the creative industry, including online games, is an eye-catching trend. In 2008 alone, the economic output by its cultural and creative industry increased by about 58 billion yuan, according to People’s Daily.

Amid a worsening financial crisis, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered a 15-percent cut in California’s vehicle fleet, a newspaper report said on Saturday.

The governor’s action followed a critical audit revealing that possibly thousands of workers are given government cars to take home at night without justification, the Los Angeles Times said.

Schwarzenegger issued his executive order on Friday after receiving the audit, according to the paper.

Allegations about the misuse of state vehicles also had been made through a government website soliciting reports of waste and misdeeds.

“Today I am taking action to get rid of waste and abuse in the state’s vehicle fleet and ordering my administration to reduce the(entire) fleet by 15 percent, eliminate all wasteful home storage permits and sell surplus cars at our state garage sale next month,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

The number of employees reported with take-home cars has increased up to 20 percent during the last three years, the paper said, quoting records it had obtained.

The state allows 8,662 workers to have such cars, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars amid the state’s financial crisis, the records show.

The trend in the private sector has been to reduce such perks, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, was quoted as saying.

The fleet reduction will save at least 24.1 million dollars the first year, according to the Department of General Services.

A self-critical audit by Caltrans found that in 38 percent of the permits tested, “the permit holder did not appear to have a justified or documented need for the permit.” If that percentage were applied to all take-home cars, it would mean more than 3,200 of the cars are being driven home by workers without justification.

Meanwhile, the governor and legislative leaders were still deadlocked in their effort to plug California’s 26.3-billion-dollar deficit. Education financing and welfare cuts remained sticking points.

Around 5.4 million children were born in the European Union (EU) last year, pushing up the total population of the 27-nation bloc to near 500 million, the EU’s statistics bureau Eurostat said on Monday.

On Jan. 1, 2009, the population of the EU was estimated at 499.8 million, compared with 497.7 million a year ago. The population of the EU grew by 2.1 million in 2008, an annual rate of 0.4 percent, due to a natural increase of 0.6 million and net migration of 1.5 million.

The demographic situation in 2008 in the EU is characterized by a continuation of the upward trend in the natural increase which began in 2004, explained by a moderate increase in the crude birth rate and a relatively constant crude death rate, while net migration has remained over the same period at an annual level of between 1.5 and 2 million.

In 2008, the crude birth rate in the EU was 10.9 per 1000 inhabitants, an increase of 0.3 live births per 1000 inhabitants compared with 2007. Between 2007 and 2008 the crude birth rate increased in all EU member states except Germany.

There were 4.8 million deaths registered in the EU in 2008. The EU death rate remained stable at 9.7 deaths per 1000 inhabitants in 2008, the same as in 2007.

Meanwhile, the population of the 16-nation Eurozone was estimated at 328.7 million on Jan. 1, 2009, while that of the previous year was 327.1 million. The population of the euro zone grew by 1.6 million in 2008, an annual rate of 0.5 percent, due to a natural increase of 0.4 million and net migration of 1.2 million.

Cisco Systems Inc. on Wednesday posted a 46-percent drop in its profit in the most recent quarter, an indication that technology spending has not yet recovered significantly.

During Cisco’s fiscal fourth quarter which ended on July 25, the world’s largest networking equipment maker earned 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, compared with 2 billion dollars in the same period a year earlier.

Its revenue fell to 8.5 billion dollars, down 18 percent from the same quarter last year.

However, the company said it saw a number of positive signs in the economy and in its business in the quarter, especially sequential quarter-over-quarter order trends.

“If we continue to see these positive order trends for the next one to two quarters, we believe there is a good chance we will look back and see that the tipping point occurred in our business in the fourth quarter,” John Chambers, Cisco’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

As for the current quarter which ends in October, Cisco said it expects a revenue drop of 15 percent to 17 percent year-on-year.