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From the China Daily, which some are calling more like a "real newspaper" for publishing articles like this one:
More than 200 protesters have been holding an angry vigil at Peking University since Wednesday to protest a professor's controversial remarks on mentally-ill petitioners. Police have taken away more than 50, a university official said yesterday.
On the morning of April 7th, 40 assailants attacked the Guangzhou Grand World Scenic Park early, Caijing reports.
From China Daily:
Southwest China's Yunnan Province plans to invest 45 million yuan (about $6.6 million) to improve prison monitoring systems after an inmate was beaten to death in February, local authorities said Thursday.
On The Christian Science Monitor correspondent Peter Ford's blog, a shrewd analysis about how news of the sentencing in Tibet did not reach the Chinese media:
Curiously, the first mainland site to post the BBC's story was "Anti-CNN," a nationalist website that decries the alleged bias of the Western media, but does not appear to appreciate the irony that the only way they can find out what is really happening in their country is to read the Western media surreptitiously.
Kaiser Kuo puts up some fascinating viewership numbers at the Youku Buzz blog.
A translation of a Southern Weekly opinion piece by Dai Zhiyong on GAPP's reforms for the publishing sector:
As several state publishers are made to grow stronger and take the lead, space needs to be made for smaller entities to grow.
It is exactly on this point that private publishers are deeply concerned. These state publishers have an absolute advantage. So the question is after restructuring and appearing on the market, will they use their economic and political resources to incorporate the private publishing industry and assert state control [国进民退] once again?
Reuters reports not about Tibetan riots but Xinjiang, and that the men who had driven a truck into a police station last August, killing 17 people, were executed today:
China executed two men in restive far-west Xinjiang on Thursday after a court convicted them over a deadly attack on police in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Abdurahman Azat, 34, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 29, were found guilty of a "terrorist attack on a frontier city's border police that left 17 dead."
From China Daily today, another step towards using the yuan in overseas trade settlement:
Shanghai and four cities in the Pearl River Delta - Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai - have been designated for the purpose, said a State Council meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday.
Larry Yung, son of "Red Capitalist" Rong Yiren, has resigned from his position as chairman of CITIC Pacific. From Reuters:
The Beijing-backed conglomerate shocked the market last October by warning of a multi-billion dollar potential loss from unauthorized foreign exchange trading, which was recently confirmed at $1.9 billion...
...But a raid on his firm by police from Hong Kong's Commercial Crime Bureau last week amid deepening fraud investigations left Yung's powerful benefactors in Beijing with no choice but to let him go.
From the Associated Press:
A Chinese court on Wednesday handed down death sentences to two Tibetans accused of starting deadly fires in last year's anti-government riots in Tibet, state media and a court officer said.
It was the first report of death sentences given out for the March 14 violence in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, that Chinese officials say killed 22 people.
Abitare prints a discussion between architect Liang Jingyu and architecture critic Fang Zhenning about the TVCC fire, translated by the magazine:
Mr.Liang: I'd like to make some complements on the meaning of this topic. In the western society, the CCTV emerges as a continuous topic all the time, and the debate mainly focuses on questioning the moral standard of Koolhass' accepting the project, which is hardly mentioned in the architecture field and mainstream media in China. It was surely because for political reasons. However, architecture itself is part of politics and a symbol of power. Thus in my opinion, whatever the project is, as long as it refers to architectural design, the practice is contaminated already, if you judge according to western moral standard. Only when you live in the present Chinese political system can you understand one point: you always have to keep in touch with the government to a certain degree, thus comes the "experiment"
Via Fang Zhenning's blog on Mindmeters, which also has page scans of the article in the Chinese edition of the magazine.
Linjun Fan at China Digital Times looks at some of the mainland responses to Hong Kong writer Chip Tao's poorly-received column about the Spratly Islands and Filipino maids:
While Tsao received very different reactions from Chinese readers, his message was also misinterpreted. Tsao was trying to ridicule fanatic patriotism in the article. But tens of thousands Chinese thought he was defending China's territory and are lauding him as a patriotic hero....
The Chinese reporter who wrote the story didn't bother to contact Tsao for comment, and he probably didn't read Tsao's original article. Instead, Fang Xiao at Dongfang Daily described the incident as follows:
...Tsao said in the article that as a patriot, he could not stand the Filipino government's claim of sovereignty over Spratly Islands,
More from Alice Poon: Satire Lost In A Foreign Language.
Tim Johnson at McClatchy Newspapers does a story on tattoos in China.
The New York Times, like other big major media, are reporting about the graveyard attack:
Last Saturday was tomb-sweeping day, when the Chinese traditionally honor the dead. Sun Wenguang, a 75-year-old retired professor, was one of many to visit the cemetery.
Apparently, though, he chose the wrong death to commemorate. He came to remember Zhao Ziyang, a former prime minister and Communist Party general secretary who lost his party position and his freedom after sympathizing with student-led, pro-democracy protests...
From China Daily: the World Bank's semi-annual report said that China's economy is likely to recover by mid-2009, and fully next year:
Fueled largely by the huge economic stimulus package, a recovery in China is likely to begin this year and take full hold in 2010, contributing to the region's stabilization," the bank said in its latest semi-annual report on the economic health of East Asia and the Pacific region.
Josh Summers reviews the English translation of Wang Gang's English, a coming-of-age story that's set in Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution.
From the China Daily, which has the misleading title "Child disease outbreak kills 18 in Henan", but which actually reports on cases of foot-and-mouth disease:
Eighteen children have died in a hand-foot-mouth disease outbreak in central China's Henan Province as of Monday with another 195 in severe conditions, health authorities said Tuesday.
The dead were among the 19,922 cases reported in Henan, where 5,965 children have been hospitalized, said Zhou Yong, a spokesman for Henan Provincial Health Administration.
Tim Johnson posts a story about Chinese students at a Florida flight school:
No matter the nationality, it's always pitiable when foreigners get taken advantage of in a major way while traveling abroad.
Here's one case involving Chinese in the U.S.: Some 130 Chinese student pilots were stranded for weeks in Florida when the flight training school they attended closed up shop even though the Chinese had paid upward of $70,000 each to attend the school.
From The China Daily:
Road map charted for universal healthcare
A master plan for healthcare over the next decade was unveiled Monday, the first step in a highly anticipated reform of the medical system that aims to provide fair and affordable services for all citizens...
...By 2020, the country will have a basic healthcare system providing "safe, effective, convenient and affordable" health services for urban and rural residents...
From Shanghaiist:
Shanghai will finally have its first, real Gay Pride day on June13, 2009...
...Unfortunately, LGBTers and fag hags will not be taking to the streets to celebrate Shanghai's fabulous gay community. However, there will be an outdoors party hosted at an, as of yet, undisclosed French Concession venue. Think street festival/block party-style Gay Pride - still outrageous, but on private property.
ChinaSMACK is at it again with a post about some photos of naughty old men and a naughty old lady that are circulating on Chinese Internet forums.
From The China Daily:
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Sunday it launched a satellite into orbit which was circling the Earth transmitting songs - but the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) said it had failed to enter orbit.
The "Taepodong-2" rocket was launched at 11:20 am local time (0220 GMT) from the East Sea Launch Ground in the east coast of the country, the DPRK's Korean Central News Agency said.