Danwei Picks is a daily digest of the "From the Web" links found on the Danwei homepage. A feed for the links as they are posted throughout the day is available at Feedsky (in China) or Feedburner (outside China).

Yuan Longping at rest (Xinhua)

Grain stores for anything but grain: The Economic Observer interviews Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice", who says that some of China's official grain stores are being put to other uses because for want of funding:

In Jiangshi, a township in Hongjiang, the EO found the three grain stores there were rented out to a local timber processor and other operations. An official known as Zhou from the Hongjiang Municipal Grain Bureau also admitted that some stores had been converted for business purposes rather than holding grains.

Lhasa in April: Sun Bin comes back from a trip to Tibet:

· Outside Potala is full of Tibetans, almost like a Causeway Bay weekend in HK. Perhaps the closing of the major monasteries have also contributed to driving the people there

· The Jokhang and Ramoche Monasteries are still blocked. PAP (or perhaps soldiers) guard every single alley around the block to check IDs. Only local residents are allowed in (but it is not difficult to get into these alleys, and even into Bakhorn street -- will elaborate). The gates of these 2 monasteries are guarded. However, the smaller monasteries around (there are 2 small temples just outside Johkang) are open

A Kiwi looks at free trade with China: Beijing resident Kiwi blogger Chris Waugh looks at Chinese language coverage of the free trade agreement that New Zealand has signed with China. His translation from Xinhua:

New Zealand was the first country to complete bilateral negotiations for China’s entry into the WTO, the first country to recognise China’s status as a full market economy, the first developed country to open negotiations on a free trade zone with China, and the first developed country to complete a free trade agreement with China. These four “firsts” in the history of economic relations with China are especially eye-catching.

Namibian firms: too many Chinese roads: Africa Files reports from the southwestern African nation of Namibia:

Local contractors in the road maintenance and construction sector accuse the Government of contravening tender procedures by awarding the bulk of tenders to foreign firms especially Chinese companies, who have virtually taken over the industry. Further accusations are that some key officials in the Government team up with Chinese nationals to form companies and thereby obtain tenders on behalf of their companies in the construction sector.

Skinhua: Cameron Diaz: State-owned news agency Xinhua's Web editors are taking their minds off more disturbing news with a return to the type of photo gallery that earned them the nickname 'Skinhhua'.

This time it's Cameron Diaz, as seen in very little clothing in a image gallery scanned from GQ magazine.

China Eastern to punish striking pilots: From The China Daily

China Eastern Airlines admitted Monday that some pilots at its Yunnan branch last week 'deliberately' turned back midway through their flights - ostensibly because of poor weather - in a rare strike action demanding higher pay.

Two senior officials of the Yunnan branch have been sacked, and a deputy general manager of the parent airline has been appointed as the new branch head to check why 21 flights returned to Kunming last Monday and Tuesday, according to a statement released by China Eastern Monday.

'We will punish those pilots in line with company rules and relevant regulations once the investigation concludes,' it said.

What's a disgruntled Chinese airline pilot supposed to do?: At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter explains why the China Eastern pilots are upset:

Now, I’m not making excuses for what the pilots did, but let’s take a look at the situation from their point of view: current ownership is demanding a 99-year unbreakable contract at the same time that their prospective new owner has taken steps to slash already below-market wages; they don’t have a union, and trying to form one will likely land them in the gulag; and even if you could figure out who to sue, it’s unlikely that any Chinese court is going to be interested in groundbreaking class-action lawsuits on behalf of a group of plaintiffs with a grudge against several large state-owned enterprises. And quitting China Eastern for another airline is hopeless - ownership is the same across the industry (at some level), and nobody wants to hire a troublemaker from another carrier

A very little speech: Chinese reactions to foreign media: Writer and translator Eric Abrahmsen of Paper Republic:

With all the excitement going on these days, staying home and translating the words of dead authors can feel a little irrelevant, if not actually escapist. I ... won’t stray too far from my comfort zone of language and literature, but I do think there’s something to be said about the Chinese responses of rage to the reporting of the foreign media.

1. The anger of the people: To some extent, this has to be a subconscious train-wreck between several emotions. Anger that the foreign media can spout off whatever they please when they, the regular Chinese people, cannot publicly say what’s on their mind...

Pearl Buck interview: A transcript and video of an interview by Mike Wallace with The Good Earth author Pearl S. Buck, recorded in 1958.

Shanghai MBA school for Africa: From The Financial Times:

China Europe International Business School, the Shanghai-based business school set up with the European Union, plans to open a campus outside China – in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

In a move that gives a new twist to Sino-African relations, CEIBS has official approval from the Ghana Ministry of Education to offer business management courses, according to Pedro Nueno, Ceibs’ executive president. CEIBS will offer executive short courses and its executive MBA programme in Accra – it already runs the world’s largest EMBA programme.