[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Samari

I didn't read the entire thing. Just half, and then bits and pieces. Me and my girlfriend talked about this later on though. I was actually wondering if the earnings these workers make constitute the standard of living there in the various parts of China where these factories are in operation. I remember in the article that one worker said that they can never get to the middle class with the earnings they make. If this is the case, then why keep working at the factory? One other girl mentioned that her parents were farmers and didn't have pension plan and I'm guessing very poor. But is there really no other way for these people that may live in poverty to earn a living than to work at a factory with such strict working conditions? Are they all uneducated or something and there are no other options?

China is a very competitive society. It is just like Singapore + Japan + Korea's education system on a larger scale.

If everyone is learning the same thing and is able to do well in it, hiring for top end jobs would become a first-come-first-serve or "coffee money" basis. As the job pyramid is filled up, the lower achieving students would be outside of it.

On the other note :

Hikikomori Baby Butcher Stabs Family of 5 over Net Access
TL Courtesy of Sankaku

A hikikomori has brutally attempted to murder his entire family of 5, attacking them with a kitchen knife and successfully stabbing to death his father and a 1-year-old baby girl, and seriously wounding the others, after which he burnt down the family home.

The cause of this rampage was the family cancelling his Internet access after he became massively indebted using his father’s credit card.

The incident began one night when the 30-year-old unemployed hikikomori, who lived together with his family in Aichi prefecture as a recluse, found someone had cancelled his Internet access.

He stormed through the house with a flashlight and beat his sleeping 58-year-old mother into wakefulness, demanding to know who had cancelled the contact – his father had apparently terminated his Internet access after he amassed some $30,000 in debt from buying games and other items in online auctions whilst using his father’s credit card.

Enraged, the hikikomori grabbed a knife from the kitchen and began methodically stabbing to death the 5 family members at the home, first returning to his mother’s bed where he stabbed his mother 10 times in the neck and flank, after which he turned on her 1-year-old granddaughter who was sleeping next to her, fatally stabbing her 3 times.

After this he set about the rest of his sleeping family, killing his 58-year-old father with 4 strikes to his neck and thighs, stabbing his 22-year-old younger brother 10 times in the neck and abdomen, and viciously stabbing his brother’s 27-year-old wife, the mother of the slain baby, 17 times in the face and flank. His brother’s injuries were minor, whilst those of his sister-in-law were grave.

Of his victims, only his father and the baby died. Another member of the family, a 24-year-old brother, escaped the massacre as he was away at the time.

After had finished stabbing his family, he returned to his room, took a lighter and set fire to his futon, with the intent of burning the house to the ground.

Police discovered him nearby, standing in the rain and dripping with the blood of his victims, whilst flames poured from the windows of his burning home. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder on the spot, later elevated to murder.

Witnesses described a scene of carnage outside the burning house, with neighbours frantically trying to save his blood soaked victims.

Reportedly he had lost control on previous occasions, with no less than 9 incidences of domestic disturbance reported to police. His family reported “he’d calm down after police came.”

A neighbour described not having seen him since he graduated from school 15 years ago – “After he graduated those 15 years ago, I never set eyes on him again.”

Cause => effect. That is how competitive societies run.

And....

N. Korea Blames South for Sinking

SEOUL – North Korea, in its first public statement about the recent sinking of a South Korean naval ship near the inter-Korean border, on Saturday blamed South Korea for the incident, which resulted in the deaths of 46 South Korean sailors.

The statement accused the South Korean government of "fabricating" the cause of the sinking and added it was "caused by their fault." It also said the South Korean government is using the sinking as a plot against the North. The statement was issued by North Korea's military and carried by its state-run news agency.

South Korean government and military officials have repeatedly said they won't be able to determine a cause until the ship is recovered. They have said they are open to all possibilities and have not ruled out North Korean involvement.

The ship was on a routine patrol in the Yellow Sea a few miles south of the maritime border with North Korea on the evening of March 26 when it was rocked by an explosion and split in two. The stern immediately sank, but the bow floated for hours and rescuers saved 58 sailors from that section of the boat.

A salvage crew on Thursday recovered the stern, which was placed on a barge and transported to port on Friday. A military investigator said a preliminary examination of the recovered confirmed survivors' accounts of an external explosion rather than an internal problem. But he said it's unclear whether a torpedo, mine or some other type of device was involved.

The bow of the 1,200-ton ship settled in shallower water than the stern. A salvage crew will begin work to lift it on Monday.

In its statement, North Korea used the extreme invective that's often heard from its authoritarian government. "The war maniacs of the South's puppet military and right-wing conservative politicians are now making a foolish attempt to link the tragedy to us after having failed to find out the cause of the sinking," the statement said.

It accused South Korea of seeking to put more international pressure on North Korea. And it accused the South's government, which has been led by the conservative party since the presidential election of 2007, of trying to use the sinking for political advantage in an upcoming legislative election in June.

The sinking could present President Lee Myung-bak with a major national security issue at a time when he's focused chiefly on economic problems and the hosting of a G-20 summit later in the year. Mr. Lee has said little about how he'll proceed if North Korea is found responsible for the sinking.

North Korea has never formally accepted the inter-Korean maritime border, which was created by the United Nations after the 1953 cease-fire that ended hostilities in the Korean War. It has tested the South's response to the border via naval incursions through the years, resulting in three bloody skirmishes.

The two Koreas traded fire in the same area where the patrol boat sank last November after a North Korean vessel strayed south of the maritime border. The North's ship caught fire and returned to port, with some reports indicating North Korean sailors were killed. North Korea has never publicly acknowledged the skirmish.

In June 2002, a North Korean patrol boat crossed the maritime border and sank one South Korean boat, killing six South Korean sailors and injuring 19 others. In a larger skirmish that lasted for several days in June 1999, South Korea sank two North Korean warships, killing an unknown number of sailors. Seven South Korean sailors were injured at that time.

I suspect that N.K torpedoed the ship. Probably advanced submarine technology from China.