Southern Metropolis Daily
January 15, 2008

Today's Southern Metropolis Daily features a police bust on the front page. A bus station in Foshan, Guangdong, was home to a gang of thieves who preyed on unsuspecting out-of-towners in the guise of motorcycle taxi drivers. Police swooped in and arrested fourteen of them yesterday (link).

This is a popular sort of story. Last August, the SMD reported the arrest of 23 bus-station thieves and revealed one scam the gang used: visitors to Foshan who hired a motorcycle taxi would be informed that out-of-area mobile phones were liable to be confiscated by the police; sure enough, a "plainclothes policeman" would show up to search for contraband (link).

The paper's top headline asks why natural gas customers are being double-charged. The red headline on top of that announces the opening of the 10th session of the province's political consultative conference.

At the bottom of the page

• When a man informed his mistress that he wouldn't marry her, she murdered his wife's child;
• Guangdong Province sold off more than 11.7 billion yuan worth of land last year.

The First, January 15, 2008

People on the ground also made the front page of The First today. The photo here is of Air China's Olympic flight attendants learning how to crouch in a standard position. Inside the paper is a report about what's going on at their training camp.

Other headlines:

• More than 50 residents at Shijia Hutong, in Beijing's Dongcheng District, went to community center for a cooking competition yesterday;
• Rafael Nadal moved into the next round of the Australian Open men's single event;
• The top headline has more information about ordering tickets for the Olympics. Successful applicants for opening and closing ceremony tickets must submit their personal photo and ID information to BOCOG.