Beijing Times
March 31, 2009

Having a private charity foundation with your name attached is no longer a privilege reserved for the wealthiest. The barrier to entry, for anyone who's interested, is wiring a measly 5 yuan per month to the account of the government-backed NGO Chinese Foundation For Poverty Alleviation, today's Beijing Times reported.

The mini-foundations are also free of government bureaucracy: donations can be made by mobile phone. Donors need only to send a text message containing the digits "95" and the donor's name to 10699999. They can also monitor the use of the money by sending a query to the the same number.

According to CFFPA vice secretary Li Li, the organization hopes to better fulfill the desire of people to do good by creating a transparent platform that enables donors to see how their money is spent.

In other news, the newspaper took another look at a fraud case dating back to last December involving bars luring customers with the promise of sex only to overcharge them for food and drinks.

According to today's article, the twenty-six people involved in the case were all found guilty of fraud, including five young women hired by the Iron & Fish Bar, as well as its 32-year-old former manager, Yu Shaokun. The other suspects were connected to other bars and cafes.

Yu, who was previously identified only by his surname, was sentenced to four-and-a-half-years in prison, while his hires received one to two years. The paper tells the story of one of the bar girls:

22-years-old Shen was the only one of the "bar girls" with a college education. She once studied medicine at a university in Beijing. Last April when she was hunting for a job, she saw an ad placed by the bar seeking a "wine promoter." After being told that her duties would include soliciting customers to spend money at the bar, she felt something wasn't right, but under pressure to make a living she didn't turn it down.

In the month prior to her arrest, Shen and another bar girl invited male customers to dine four times, to the tune of 4,000 yuan. As stipulated in her contract, Shen received 500 yuan from her work.

In court, Shen expressed her remorse and said that she "didn't know it was a crime." Yesterday, Shen was sentenced to one year in prison.