Danwei Noon Report is a daily roundup of new and old media coverage about China from Chinese and English sources. This report was compiled by Joel Martinsen and Jeremy Goldkorn

Thai coup on the cover of The Beijing Times.

The Thai armed forces seized power without firing a shot, dismissed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government, revoked the constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms.

Army commander-in-chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who had dismissed the possibility of a coup in recent months as a political crisis dragged on, took the reins of power late on Tuesday without a government title.

A coup spokesman said Thaksin was ousted to resolve the near year-long political deadlock and stop "rampant corruption". (Links: Reuters, Xinhua, Xinhua (Chinese)

Murdoch plans MySpace China
From the Financial Times

Rupert Murdoch said on Tuesday that his wife, Wendy Deng, was working with senior News Corp executives to help bring the company’s popular MySpace social networking site to China.

“We have to make MySpace a very Chinese site,” Mr Murdoch said at a media conference organised by Goldman Sachs. “I have sent my wife across there because she understands the language.”

Ah yes, the language. That'll ensure everything works out smoothly. (link, see also CNN story)

Internet Nanny strikes back
From Reporters without Borders:

Two editors on the Netease website, Tang Yan and Liu Xianghui, were demoted after posting a poll on 4 September that asked readers: "If you were reincarnated, would you like to be Chinese?" (See Danwei post)...

The website of Zou Tao, a 32-year-old blogger based in Shenzhen, a city near Hong Kong, was closed on 11 September as a result of the popularity of his Internet campaign, launched in April, to convince people not to buy apartments for three years in order to cool down an overheated real estate market. His campaign had won the support of tens of thousands of Internet users and had an impact throughout China.

The closure of his site was probably precipitated by his announcement in August that he was going to run as a candidate for Luoho district representative in the People's Congress of Shenzhen in elections taking place on 28 September. Candidates are normally nominated by Communist Party local committees, so Zou's candidature would have been seen as a threat by the authorities. He has been banned from leaving the region and has been threatened by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau. Several of his blogs have also been closed but this one, is still accessible.

More plagiarism from the Flowers
The new album from pop-pastiche artists The Flowers, scheduled for release yesterday, was recalled by EMI so that rights issues could be resolved. The Flowers can't seem to release a song without accusations of plagiarism; when allegations surfaced concerning a newly released song this summer, the group just barely escaped by claiming that one of the songs on their new album was a cover. However, when a second song, 大喜宙, seems to have copied a Korean pop tune (perhaps by way of Aaron Kwok's cover version), the record label decided to take back 200,000 copies of the album.

Da Zhang Wei, lead singer and songwriter for the group, earlier this year admitted to 'imperfections' in his compositions. Yesterday he poured out his heart to the media, describing his struggles to avoid plagiarism:

I'm already trying very hard to avoid repeating other people's melodies. To solve this torturous problem, during the recording process, I record and edit, edit and record, over and over. Countless people examine the songs and help me in meetings. Sleepless nights, headaches like no other every day, nerves stretched to the point of nausea, all so that I can make it over this stage. (link in Chinese)

Terracotta Warriors prank
A German art student dressed up as a Terracotta Warrior and stood among the real Terracotta Warriors for a few minutes before being kicked out by cops and sent back to his university in Hangzhou. Jane Macartney has the story as a newspaper article and as a blog post.

Links and notes
- Hunan TV to compensate advertisers for decline in Super Girls ratings in 2006 (link).
- The Banquet does well at the box office - 40 million yuan during opening weekend (link).
- ESWN translates Southern Weekend article about foreign journalists in China (link)
- Uncontrolled mining of Jade in Hotan, Xinjiang (link).
- Some Mobile and Internet business resources
- Jake Ludington - reviews of IT and tech businesses in China
- Mobile Monday Beijing - mobile phone business news and networking
- CNNIC Internet 2006 report - Chinese language information and stats about the Chinese Internet