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paulmason-newsnight

Listed below are comments made by paulmason-newsnight between Wednesday, 11th March 2009 and Thursday, 18th June 2009.

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A journey through China's economic crisis 11:13pm on 18 Jun 2009 Hello to all who have posted. I will try to pick up some themes:
#27 I decided to start in the west because the story is never told. What you saw is my agenda (economic crisis) colliding with reality (poverty and eco-crisis)
#food: the food on the train was the best of the entire trip: chicken stew with potatoes. Hotpot is too overwhelming. BTW Chinese long distance trains beat Indian longdistance trains on all measures by about 50 years of development, but are about equal on food quality in "soft" class
#Shizuishan: frustratingly I did not have time to investigate the SZS situation. But please help me out here. Send me your email and help me to get to the bottom of what's in those clouds
#Bolton: I am from Leigh, Greater Manchester. Not Bolton or Cumbria. I went to school in Bolton but grew up in Leigh.
UK moved a slight notch closer to bust 3:28pm on 22 May 2009 re Recession Training. In Western China, where I've been for 10 days, there is no recession. There is a worrying growth dip but the restaurants are full and the further west you get, the more people go HuH? when you say global crisis. I can only write what I see.
UK moved a slight notch closer to bust 4:52pm on 21 May 2009 Fair points on the pound, it came back as I thought it would but the initial graph looked like a cliff. Fair points also on AAA downgrades - I am away from any reliable internet source (lots of stuff still wierdly censored here). I will be back the middle of next week. I am not sorry I am missing this political meltdown because, frankly, the fate of 1.3bn people is also quite important.
I've gone freestyle again, in China's Wild West 3:11pm on 15 May 2009 Dear all I greatly appreciate all this: I will neither go bareback, nor fall for a "honeytrap" whatever that might be. I am here to report and reporting means a 13 hour day on jetlag with no breakfast and only something frankly inedible for lunch. I know I am far from the expenses story but glad to be so. My own expenses on this trip are currently - since there the best hotel I could find has cigarette burns in both mattress and curtains - quite low. I have seen the Great Wall today though: the real great wall made of clay with slumdwelling farmers living more or less inside it.
Quantitative Easing vs the Budget: How much is enough? 4:04pm on 09 May 2009 Shire, many thanks for that. It helps clarify things. I will get cracking on this issue. Mind you the Guardian today offers a still more gloomy reason why Mervyn has done this. Overandout: Paul
100 days: rage builds quietly from two directions 6:30pm on 29 Apr 2009 Yeah I don't know where that photo of me came from! It seems to have been lifted off my book publisher's website, replacing the one the BBC had specially taken of me. This redesign actually slightly annoys me all told: the other site was elegant, user friendly and had a "Newsnight" feel about it. I suspect it was just "mandated" by the BBC.
My Great British Summit Cock-up Hell 10:08am on 02 Apr 2009 1. Because we were instructed on pain of sniper fire to only go in by official bus. All the DLR stations are closed.
Tales from (eastern) Europe: Airports 10:23pm on 23 Mar 2009 re the cameras. Actually I have been experimenting with cameras lately. On this trip we are using my cameraman's traditional 14kg TV camera which shoots straight to hard drive; that's why we can edit on the road. Then we are using a SOny Z1 type camera to get into tricky places. But I am also using my Sony HDR-TG3 which is tiny. It has many drawbacks: no sound input; no earphone socket - but one massive advantage. It shoots HD and people react to you as if you are a human being, not a journalist. I shot a lot of my Wigan Pier film on this. As for the Red cameras - they look genuinely whizzy. When I make my first feature film I will be sure to have a go on one! Cheers from Bratislava. Paul
Hello from bankrupt Kiev, 4x4 capital of Europe 8:59pm on 21 Mar 2009 Thanks for all your concern about Kiev's nightclubs. I am in fact editing my report at 2300 local in my hotel room with a roomserviceburger. I hope that is public service enough. I take all the points and suggestions. One of the problems with EEurope is that they did not amass foreign exchange reserves or budget surpluses in the good times. On the 4x4 issue: I specifically said "top range 4x4s" because I have nothing against the humble Toyota Rav4, Honda or the noble Landrover V8. It is the Hummer, the Terrano, X5 et al that in this context I was meaning. And I have nothing against them per se, nor even somebody who has earned their money by the sweat of their brow deciding to blow it all on 15mpg wheels. Many of the people I spoke to in the last few days cannot help fearing that any money pumped into this country by the IMF without stringent conditions will simply end up in the bank accounts of rich people and criminals. And yet unless the IMF loosens the conditions it will be accused of letting Ukraine go bust. To see the IMF twist and turn on this bit of rope go here:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2009/tr022709.htm
Three levers pulled. Will they work? 4:44pm on 11 Mar 2009 Actually the date on this blog is wrong. It's a glitch in the system. I wrote it this morning, 11.03.2009.

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