Headlines from the Chinese press
DECEMBER 1

Beijing Morning Post 晨报
Commercial apartments must promote themselves by quoting 'usable area'
今起商品房按套内面积销售
In China, real estate developers use two methods to calculate the area of an apartment in square meters: 'structural' and 'usable'. Since structural area can include columns, walls that you can't bash down and other obstacles to the good life, developers can make an apartment sound a lot bigger than it is by quoting the structural area. So now there's a law against it.

Beijing Youth Daily 北京青年报
Crime before holidays rises up,the police deal with it urgently
节前犯罪抬头 警方紧急应付
What it means: This starts every year about two months before Spring Festival. The holiday falls on January 21 in 2004. So now people need make a buck so they can home in style. So the cops crack down on anything that looks a bit dodgy. Same old song.

Beijing Star Daily 信报
Origin of 95% of [China's] AIDS infections not yet identified
95% 艾滋病传染源还没找到
What it means: Good question.

People's Daily 人民日报
Wu Chuan : Change from upward to downward discussion
吴川：变上访为下访
In Wuchuan city, Guangdong, cadres visit the masses to talk to them instead of the masses coming to the cadres. Excellent!

The Beijing News 新京报
In the wind and rain for ten years, they've got the First Division Premier League
风雨十载甲A落幕
Shanghai Shenhua soccer team played Shenzhen Jianlibao, and lost, but managed to win enough points to win the top Chinese league after ten years of being the Boston Red Sox of Chinese soccer.

AIDS patients: difficulty in getting medical treatment
艾滋病人求医难
What it means: It's not easy being HIV positive in China.

The Economic Observer 经济观察报
Why is it always the color TV that gets hurt?
为什么受伤的总是彩电？
What it means: Bush may be about to lift tariffs on steel, but there are a lot of Chinese TV manufacturers who have TVs sitting in docks, waiting for the recently imposed tariffs on Chinese TVs to be lifted before they can shift their stock. And if they can't sell their stock, there are a lot of workers who may not have jobs and have to return to the grinding poverty of life in an agricultural village.

INTERNET

Sina
A ten year story in the First Division Premier League end; a great tragi-comedy ends but people don't leave
十年甲A大幕落下 悲喜大剧曲终人不散

Sohu
AIDS patients in China increase to 1 million
我国艾滋病感染者累计人数达100 万

NOVEMBER 31

Beijing Evening News 北京晚报
A visit to the only AIDS patient in prison in Beijing
探访北京监狱中惟一一名艾滋病毒感染者

Shanghai Xinmin Evening News 新民晚报
Central economic work conference starts in Beijing
中央经济工作会议在京召开