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).

Liaoning Publishing and Media Co to list?: China Knowledge reports:

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) will be reviewing the domestic IPO plan of Liaoning Publishing and Media Co Ltd on November 20, as the draft prospectus submitted by the Chinese publishing firm did not specify whether its shares will be listed in the Shanghai or Shenzhen bourse.

According to the IPO plans, Liaoning Publishing will be offering up to 140 million A-shares, representing 25.41% of the company's enlarged capital. The funds raised from the offering will be directed towards improving its logistics, expanding its chain of stores, as well as to supplement its working capital.

During the first half of the year, Liaoning Publishing posted operating revenues and net profit amounting to RMB429.54 million and 40.94 million respectively.

Shanghai stock market to allow foreign companies to list?: The BBC reports:

China's largest exchange may permit companies such as HSBC, Coca-Cola and Siemens - which have large business operations in the country - to trade.

Que Bo, assistant general manager of Shanghai's exchange said it was doing market research on the plan and expected to 'get some results soon'.

Other consumers - two trash collectors in Chengdu: Barking at the Sun looks at the income gap between different groups of trash collectors in Chengdu:

Zhang's fortunes are not quite as good as Lin's. Every day he makes a little over 10RMB—in a month he might make about 300RMB. He accomplishes this by working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., sometimes going home as late as 8 p.m. Even though by national standards of income Zhang is deeply impoverished, he says that he does make enough to meet his daily needs for food and housing. Both Zhang and Lin. go to the same reclamation center at Erxian Bridge (near where Lin lives), and they receive the same amount of money for each item they turn in.

How could two people in roughly the same line of work and the same situation have such vast disparities in their income?

Foreign Ministry confirms Lonely Planet ban: The Age reports that the long-rumored ban on the Lonely Planet guidebook for China has been confirmed:

After repeated reports of confiscations from travellers, China's ministry of foreign affairs confirmed that the guide was banned last year because of a map that depicts the People's Republic of China and Taiwan as separate countries.

A spokesman said the book has some errors concerning the Taiwan issue, such as marking the Chinese mainland and Chinese Taiwan in different colours (on the map). These practices breach Chinese law.

via Hao Hao Report.

Why pirated Eileen Chang books are everywhere: ESWN translates a lengthy Southern Metropolis Daily report on the dispute between mainland publishers and Taiwan's Crown Press over the rights to Eileen Chang's estate.

On September 5, 2007, twelve mainland publishers issued a "joint declaration" in "News Publishing Daily" in which they question the validity of Crown Press (Taiwan)'s claim of owning the copyright to the Eileen Chang copyrights. The declaration stated: "Recently, we found out that Crown Press (Taiwan) is holding an unregistered copy of a will that Eileen Chang has personally stated is 'no longer valid.'"

...On September 27, Crown Press (Taiwan) made a public rebuttal on the charges from the twelve publishers. The core of the debate revolves around two points: First, did the will of Eileen Chang go through the proper legal procedures to become legally valid? Second, if valid, does Eileen Chang's possessions include the copyrights.

Gotcha! The source of the paper tiger: The South China Tiger that Zhou Zhenglong claims to have photographed in the forests of Shaanxi has been discovered on a previously-published wall poster. Black and White Cat has the story.

Political prisoners return to politics: Laowiseass discusses the political techniques of ex-cons:

Now their prison records invoke sympathy from voters, who in turn think the wronged ex-cons deserve a chance at the throne. To wit, President Chen Shui-bian, Vice-President Annette Lu, former party chiefs and a bunch of legislators served in prison in the 1970s.

So imagine when the Communist Party falls. Then today's incarcerated rabble-rousers, folks in prison for stoking protests at the state complaints office in Beijing or shooting video of illegal housing demolition in Shanghai, will form a fully legal political party. The likes of former New York Times researcher Zhao Yan, former demolition activist Ye Guozhu and any number of Tiananmen Square activists now in prison will have a clean shot at running China.