Earthquake prediction in China
ESWN translates a Southern Weekly feature that explains in great detail just why no one could possibly have predicted the Wenchuan earthquake.
« October 19, 2008 - October 25, 2008 | Main | November 2, 2008 - November 8, 2008 »
October 31, 2008
10,000 RMB lawsuit in Sprite-for-tax swap
A Beijing diner was given a bottle of Sprite in lieu of a receipt. She then sued the restaurant for 10,000 yuan for depriving her of her legal right to monitor national tax collection.
Microsoft's black screens
Shanghai checks fisheries for melamine use
The Shanghai Daily:
Shanghai will carry out full-scale checks on feed used in the fisheries industry due to fears that the widening melamine-tainted food scandal may spread to seafood.
Dangerous levels of the chemical have already been found in eggs and milk powder.
Shanghai's Livestock Office said yesterday that the checks would cover more than 100 feed producers in the city. Further inspections on seafood would start if any food given to fish was found to be contaminated with melamine.
MySpace China failing, looks for answers
From BusinessWeek by Bruce Einhorn:
MySpace China, a joint venture among News Corp., venture capital firm IDG-Accel (a partnership between Boston-based IDG and Accel Partners from Silicon Valley), and local investment firm China Broadband Capital Partners, doesn't have much to show for its effort. 'MySpace.cn has not become a Tier 1 SNS site in China,' said Beijing-based market researcher BDA China in an August report.
GoDaddy and SourceForge blocked in China again
From Moonlight Blog:
GoDaddy, the world's largest ICANN-accredited domain registrar, and SourceForge, the world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications, appears to blocked in Mainland China again after Beijing 2008 Olympic Games closed.
China Business Post sues govt. for censorship
By Mire Dickie in The Financial Times:
Backers of a shuttered Chinese business weekly have launched a highly unusual challenge to the country's media censors by filing a lawsuit against the regional government that ordered its suspension over reports critical of a major state bank.
The legal complaint filed on Wednesday in the name of a reporter for the China Business Post demands that the Inner Mongolia bureau of press and publications rescind the three month suspension order imposed on it over its reporting on alleged mishandling of loans at the Agricultural Bank of China...
...Bruno Wu, head of the privately invested Sun Media group which owns China Business Post's commercial and marketing operations through a UK-listed subsidiary, last month denounced the suspension and vowed not to re-open the weekly until it was revoked.
Stabbings in Beijing
A law professor was stabbed to death in his classroom by a student in Beijing. In a separate incident, two foreigners were stabbed by a man whose motive appeared to be robbery.
China adjusts to leaner times
At the New York Times, media mogul Hung Huang blogs about the economic downturn:
A friend of mine owns a textile manufacturing company. She has been hurting since the beginning of the year because of the new labor laws. However, I really admire her attitude: She said that in order for Chinese manufacturing to improve in quality, we must be able to improve our management system. Otherwise, all we are doing is selling our people and environment for the cheapest price in the world. "The Chinese must learn to compete for quality and brand," she said. I think she is right.
October 30, 2008
Linfen gag fees spark media ethics debate
China Media Project collects some responses to the China Youth Daily report about a coal mine buying reporters' silence.
Farmers have the right to keep land for themselves
CASS researcher Yu Jianrong speaks to Southern Metropolis Weekly about the new rural land policy.
Liu Zhihua appeals death sentence, pens novel
Former Beijing vice-mayor Liu Zhihua is appealing the suspended death sentence he was given in a corruption case:
[Liu's lawyer Mo Shaoping] said Liu "thought the sentence was too heavy because the court did not consider the fact that he confessed" to crimes investigators had not yet uncovered. Liu also complained that the court had "no humanitarian consideration for his family's life" by confiscating all his personal property.
...Liu spends his time reading historical and Buddhist books and is writing a novel, Mo said Tuesday.
China's climate change policies
Xinhua has published the full text of a government document called 'China's Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change'.
World of Warcraft in China and U.S.
On The China Beat: Q&A with UCI Professor of Informatics Bonnie Nardi about her comparative studies of World of Warcraft online game players in China and the U.S.
Hush money for real and fake journalists
Zhongnanhai Blog translates two China Youth Daily stories about reporters lining up to accept payouts from a coal mine in return for not filing stories about it.
China launches Venezuelan satellite
Nasa Spaceflight reports on a successful launch via a Long March 3B rocket of Venezuela's first satellite:
Simon Bolivars launch was the 11th use of the CZ-3B, the seventh successful orbital launch for China this year and the 112th successful orbital launch overall.
The satellite is based on the DFH-4 bus and is the first time that China has launched a satellite for Latin America. The agreement for the development, construction and launch of Simon Bolivar was signed on November 1, 2005 - for what was originally a launch date target of July 2008.
October 29, 2008
Farmers' Olympics held in Quanzhou
The Sixth Farmers' Olympics, a national athletic competition for rural household registration holders, is taking place in Quanzhou, Fujian Province this week. Athletes compete in agriculture-related events as well as traditional sports competitions. Xinhua has a gallery.
Wal-Mart's new sustainability mandate in China
At Harvard Business (via BusinessWeek), Andrew Winston reports on the Wal-Mart Sustainability Summit, which was held in Beijing:
Suppliers must reveal the name and location of every factory they use to make a product, as early as November for apparel, then home goods, toys, and others by the end of 2009. As Duke said, "If you sell us tennis shoes, we expect you to know and tell us where it was made and which sub-contractors were involved...If you don't pose these questions, our customers will...in this age of YouTube there is no trust without transparency." (Wal-Mart will have more insight into what's going on at factories than ever before thanks to the work of Ma Jun who runs an NGO that has compiled compliance data on every factory.
No more re-imported comments from our leaders
ESWN translates an op-ed column by Xiong Peiyun in Southern Weekly that discusses the practice of Chinese politicians giving much more candid interviews to the foreign press than they do inside the country.
Uyghurs speak out on hotel restrictions
The New Dominion translates some online reactions from Uyghurs to regulations that require the police to be notified when they and ethnic Tibetans register at hotels.
October 28, 2008
China real estate market slump
Chinese hostages killed in Sudan
The BBC reports that five Chinese workers in Sudan, who were among nine Chinese oil workers taken hostage nine days ago, have been killed:
The kidnappers later released a local driver kidnapped with the Chinese with a note saying they wanted a share in the region's oil wealth.
The Chinese were employees of the China National Petroleum Corporation, part of a consortium making up the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC).
Of mayors, banquets, and a temple that wasn't
A recent hire at a state publisher goes on a 10-day press junket to Liaoning:
We went to many places, but an ever-recurring location was the conference room. We saw a lot of conference rooms. Some of the officials seemed like out-and-out gangsters. Others seemed quite straight. But could you really tell?
October 27, 2008
IT entrepreneur arrested for extortion
Liu Ren, head of DoNews, was arrested for threatening to post false, damaging stories about IT companies on his website unless they paid him protection money.
Two sets of Beijing heroes
The English and Chinese editions of Time Out Beijing each pick their own sets of heroes. Li Yuchun's fans go nuts in the comments section.
Foreign scrap trader kidnapped for ransom in Ningbo
Shanghai Scrap notes that the economic downturn has almost destroyed the lucrative trade in scrap metal from Europe and the U.S. to China, where the hunger for commodities ensured a market for almost any kind of scrap.
One of the traders affected got in more trouble than most as a result of the gloomy market: one of the companies he sold scrap too kidnapped him and demanded USD 350,000 for his release.
October 26, 2008
The best reporting on the Sichuan earthquake you'll never see
At The China Beat, Angilee Shah discusses documentary filmmaker Pan Jianlin's new movie, Who Killed Our Children:
Although only a few official media outlets were allowed to report on earthquake devastation at first, other media were not kicked out of devastated areas. Pan stayed in tents, like the locals, and parents were eager to talk. Local officials wanted media attention so that their neighborhoods would get help. In ten days, before being kicked out by soldiers, Pan filmed people on the ground - parents who were eager to find out the truth, teachers who narrated their experiences, and students whose classmates and siblings were lost. Almost all government officials refused to speak, but several school officials, a relief coordinator and an education official did go on camera.