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).

The real team Darfur: From Khartoum-based journalist and blogger Andrew Heavens:

A world away from the political rows over China and the Olympic Games, a young Darfuri man crouches down at the start of a cracked and pitted running track in the capital of Sudan...

...In a few years, Sudan is going to be on a par with Kenya and Ethiopia as a running nation.

China to build hospital in Sudan: Xinhua reports:

China is to build a large-scale hospital in the Blue Nile State in southeastern Sudan, a local official announced on Monday.

Architect Ma Yansong Sells Out: Luke Mines of Sexy Beijing finds architect Ma Yansong pimping for a kitchen appliance manufacturer.

A Death Note for distribution: Kaiju Shakedown suggests that distributors would be wise to seek other channels for screening Asian films (Bollywood pictures excepted):

It's becoming increasingly rare for an Asian movie to gross over $100,000 at the box office in America, so what do you do? Stop importing them entirely?

...It's time to accept reality: Asian movies can no longer compete against Hollywood at the American multiplex, so maybe it's time distributors stopped acting like they were movies and they became special gatherings where local fans could interact and hang out? Distributors will be nervous about losing imaginary profits, and about slicing the pie up so thin (NCM takes a large cut of the box office I would imagine, as does the local multiplex) but when they look at all the P&A costs they can save I think it becomes a lot more attractive.

Olympic ad sales 'strong': From SportsBusiness.com:

US Olympic broadcaster, NBC, has sold three-quarters of its 2008 Games advertising space at strong prices, despite recent protests surrounding the torch relay.

Cross straits diplomatic breakthrough: Dexter Roberts writing for BusinessWeek from the Boao forum:

But all of [the important guests were] overshadowed by the presence of 67-year-old Vincent Siew, a Taiwanese politician who hasn't even assumed office yet. Siew, who becomes vice-president under Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou on May 20, got less than half an hour of rushed talks on Apr. 12 with China's President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the Boao Forum. Still, with those 20 minutes Siew stole the show from the many other dignitaries, with crowds of journalists and diplomatic and corporate delegates mobbing him everywhere the career politician went.

That's because the meeting between Siew and Hu (and a follow-up session a day later with China's newly appointed Commerce Minister) was truly a diplomatic breakthrough.

BBC poll: perceptions of China: Black and White Cat has posted the results of a BBC World Service poll about the way people of different nations perceive the influence on the world of China, the U.S., and their own countries.

An...interesting thing is the big divide between the developed and the developing world in assessing China’s influence. Europeans and North Americans have a much more negative view of China than Africans, Latin Americans and Asians. Europeans and North Americans might want to bear this in mind when they talk about the 'international community.'

Beijing Olympic air quality measures announced: The China Daily reports:

Work at Beijing construction sites will be suspended in the run-up to, and during, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the municipal government announced Monday.

The suspension - along with a slew of other initiatives - to be effective from July 20 to September 20, aims to ensure better air quality during the Games...