Danwei Noon Report is a daily roundup of new and old media coverage about China from Chinese and English sources. Today's report was compiled with submissions from Bill Zhang, Banyue and Sinodrom.

Hey terrorist, terrorize this!

Beijing SWAT
The Beijing News reports that after the 10 months of preparations, Beijing's new special forces police (北京特警总队) have made their first public appearance. According to the report, there are 970 members of this team, and they are highly armed. The image here is from the Beijing News story, and shows members of the special force in a training exercize (link - in Chinese).

Digital movies in the countryside
From CRI :

China will try digital movies in rural areas, with 1,200 digital movie system (DMS) machines being delivered to eight provinces in October.

"Due to the low cost of DMS developed by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), rural audiences can enjoy high-quality digital movies for only a few yuan," said Mao Yu, vice director of the SARFT digital program management center.

According to the SARFT, the test will cover 16 cities in eight provinces. Each village will be allocated one DMS set.

"To carry out the plan nationwide we would need 100,000 to 200,000 DMS sets," a SARFT source said (link).

Porn ring suspects in court
From CRI:

The trial involving China's largest pornographic website, which boasts more than 600,000 registered members, began on Wednesday.

Nine creators and organizers of the website "Qingseliuyuetian", meaning pornographic summer, are being sued at the Taiyuan Intermediate People's Court in north China's Shanxi Province. (Link)

The article includes a screenshot of the suspected ring leader behind bars.

O'Kane on Bullog
Chinese blogger Luo Yonghao (罗永浩) has added American Beijing resident and infrequent Danwei contributor Brendan O'Kane to his blog portal Bullog. Links:
• Bullog
• O'Kane's Chinese blog
• O'Kane's English blog
• O'Kane's all time hit contribution to Danwei: Selling Excavating sex

Martial arts slugfest at Shaolin Temple
Sina.com reports that a 37 martial arts masters from 37 countries are headed for Shaolin, where they will take part in a championship competitition. There will also be a culutual festival hosted by celebrated composer Tan Dun (谭盾) and cartoonist Cai Zhizhong (蔡志忠). Sina article quotes the Shaolin Temple's head honcho comparing the competition to the Super Girls TV show (link).

Taboo term "press freedom" unshelved
From the China Media Project:

As mainland Chinese media continue to throw their support behind two Chinese journalists facing a costly libel suit from a Taiwanese manufacturing company in a Shenzhen court, a term generally cold-shouldered in Chinese media, press freedom (新闻自由), is emerging discreetly in the debate. (Link)

Lawyer Gao
Posted on Spot On, Jonathan Anfield quotes the The China Daily and then tells the story of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng:

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security said on Friday that it has detained Gao Zhisheng for questioning for his suspected involvement in criminal activities.

Gao, 42, of Han nationality, was residing in Room 202, Unit 7 of Building 11, Xiaoguan Beili, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the bureau said in a brief press release.

As one of Chinese top ten lawers [sic], Gao has long been an expert in legal aid field.
- China Daily web site (via Xinhua news agency), August 18, 2006

The last time I chatted with Gao Zhisheng, he’d just finished watching Gandhi.

It was one of those late April days in Beijing when you can taste the dust. I was with Martin Garbus, the veteran First Amendment trial lawyer, whose case work with dissidents includes names like Havel, Sahkarov and Mandela. He wanted to meet Gao, one of seven children of cave-dwelling peasants, who’d emerged as arguably the most brazen figure in China’s widening network of “rights defenders”. We took our seats in a tiny room at a teahouse next to Gao’s apartment block, and asked Gao how he was getting along of late. The first topic out of his mouth was Gandhi. (Link)