Danwei Noon Report is a daily roundup of new and old media coverage about China from Chinese and English sources.

Red Star over Walmart

Communist Party branch set up at Walmart
Coming soon after the founding of the first trade union in a Walmart in China, a Communist Party branch (党团组织) has now been set up in the Walmart in Shenyang. (Link - in Chinese)

North Korea develops nano-tech products
The People's Onion Daily reports that North Korea is not only pouring money into Type O' Dongs:

Nano-tech water disinfector and toothbrush are now being mass-produced in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Wednesday.

The nano-tech water disinfector does not need electricity or any outside energy, but relies on "the pollution-free pasteurization technique of the fifth generation belonging to the category of cold disinfection," the report said...

...The new toothbrush is made of nano-tech antibiotic materials with sterilizing power which "prevents and cures oral diseases including Riggs' disease and dental caries, and it removes halitosis," the KCNA said.

"These products are mass-produced in the Pyongyang Daily Necessities Factory, Sinuiju Cosmetic Factory and other factories, " the KCNA added. (Link)

Beijing Railway Bureau sells outdoor media rights to BMC
The Beijing News yesterday reported that the Beijing Railway Bureau has given the concession for all its outdoor advertising, including Beijing, West Beijing, Tianjin and Shi Jiazhuang stations, to BMC, a German-owned company. This is the first such deal between a Railway Bureau and a foreign company (link - in Chinese).

From the Google Finance page about BMC: "Business Media China AG (BMC AG) is a media company formerly known as CNV Vermoegensverwaltung AG." BMC has a website, here.

Cars must be registered in your own name
The top headline in this morning's Beijing papers concerns new rules making it illegal to register a car under a borrowed ID. Until last year, a Beijing residence permit was required in order to put Beijing plates on a car, so many outsiders would rent IDs from car-less Beijingers, causing headaches when traffic fines were incurred. Some people were able to turn a tidy profit; China Times reports that one individual had more than 3000 vehicles registered to his name. Three months from now, all such cars will be banned from the road unless their owners re-register with their real information (China Times, link).

Bokee to share ad revenues with bloggers
Bokee.com, one of the early movers among China's blog providers, is offering to share advertising revenues with bloggers. You can check out the program at the aptly named URL bank.bokee.com. Bloggers can choose what ads go on their site, and get paid using the AliPay service. The blog section of Hexun (owned by SEEC which also publishes Caijing magazine) has previously experimented with such schemes, but it is unclear how successful they have been.