Mourning the victims of the Shanghai fire
The aftermath of the Shanghai high rise fire: Newspaper front pages, satirical Internet art and the mourning march organized by citizens and tolerated by the government.
« November 14, 2010 - November 20, 2010 | Main | November 28, 2010 - December 4, 2010 »
November 26, 2010
BBC: Beijing Bookworm is one of "world's greatest bookshops"
Beijing's Bookworm has made it onto the BBC's list of the world's greatest bookshops:
The Bookworm does everything a good bookshop should do - which is a lot more than sell books. The Beijing mothership, which has spawned branches in Suzhou and Chengdu, has played a huge role in promoting both local and foreign literature...
November 25, 2010
Shanghai fire: Shanghainese "more valuable" than coal miners?
Josh China and Juliet Ye in The Wall Street Journal:
Controversy over a deadly fire that consumed an apartment tower in Shanghai last week has reignited, this time over the issue of compensation.
Shanghai authorities announced earlier this week that the families of the 58 killed in the blaze would each receive 960,000 yuan, or roughly $144,000, including a one-time accidental-death payment of 650,000 yuan.
How did they come up with 960,000?” wrote one reader on the Phoenix News website. “Why is it coal miners don’t get that much?”
Key diplomat in China-U.S. rapprochement Huang Hua dies
David Barboza in The New York Times:
Huang Hua, a Communist Party revolutionary who was China’s foreign minister during the 1970s and early 1980s and helped China restore diplomatic relations with the United States, died Wednesday in Beijing. He was 97.
The Ayi Jihu hoax
China Music Radar:
The BBC, Sky News, the Daily Mail, the Sun and other such luminaries have all written that Ayi Jihu has become one of China’s biggest new stars, routinely topping lists of sexiest Chinese women and her music has become phenomenally popular in the lucrative mobile phone download market with young people in China...
...Our conclusion: a cynical attempt by a PR company and record executives to try and fool the Western market into believing that this feel good story is actually a true one (and in the process make lots of money out of it). Watch the BBC video and it seems that she is pretty complicit in the scam.
"Crazy bad" air quality explained
Live from Beijing is a blog by an "an American engineer who works on clean transportation for China". He has taken a look at the air quality numbers from last week pollution nightmare that the U.S. Embassy's Beijing Air Twitter feed called "crazy bad".
The searchers
Austin Ramzy writes about the stolen children of China from Shanghai:
Zhou was repeatedly told by his new family, a large farming clan in Fujian, that his life would have been much worse had he never been sold to them. During his first several years in his new home, that seemed hardly the case. While the family was relatively prosperous by local standards, Zhou says he was given less food than the others, and he had to do more work around the farm to earn his keep. He constantly fought with his new parents, and would escape several times a year in hopes of returning home. But he had no idea where home was.
Shanghai pollution index rockets
The China Daily reports:
China's largest metropolis has suffered from high levels of pollution since early November, with pollution index figures far higher than those recorded during the six months of the World Expo.
As of Wednesday, the city has witnessed its air pollution index passing 100 for eight days this month, the worst readings in the past five years.
China's environmental standards rate a reading below 50 as "excellent", from 50 to 100 as "good" and above 100 as "polluted".
Plastic surgery kills '05 Super Girl contestant
From the China Daily:
A 24-year-old female singer died early last week when she was having plastic surgery in central China's Hubei Province, local authorities confirmed Wednesday, as postings about her death drew extensive attention from Internet users.
Wang Bei, once a contestant in the popular talent show Super Girl, died on Nov 15 in an anesthetic accident during plastic surgery, said a spokesman for the health bureau of Jiang'an District, Wuhan City, capital of Hubei.
November 24, 2010
SARFT moves to stop pirated TV
The China Daily explains why you're no longer able to get your America's Next Top Model fix from Youku.
Setting the wrecking ball loose
Shanghai Scrap details how the Carmelite Convent, a registered historical building, was demolished for redevelopment and then rebuilt on the same site at a slightly smaller scale.
Rare earth shipments to Japan resume
The BBC reports that the situation has returned to normal after exports were halted following the ship collision near disputed islands:
China has begun exporting rare earths to Japan after a two-month suspension due to a territorial row.
Japan's trade minister confirmed that shipments of the minerals, vital for making a number of hi-tech products, started this week.
November 23, 2010
Coal miners rescued
Xinhua reports on the rescue of 29 trapped miners in Sichuan:
Twenty-nine miners trapped in a flooded coal mine in southwest China's Sichuan Province for 25 hours were successfully rescued Monday.
Water inundated the Batian Coal Mine in Weiyuan County at 11 a.m. Sunday when 35 miners were working underground. Thirteen of the miners managed to escape by themselves while 22 were trapped.
After the flooding, deputy mine manager Cheng Ronghui and the general foreman Zhang Hongliang led a team of seven into the mine in an attempt to rescue the remaining 22 miners. However, the rescue mission failed and they themselves became trapped.
Coal miners shot
Xinhua reports on a blast at a coal mine in Yunnan that killed nine:
A shed of Xiaosongdi Coal Mine exploded after explosives in it were detonated at 9 am last Thursday when Zheng Chunyun, boss of nearby Yuejing Coal Mine, arrived with more than 80 people armed with knives and steel bars.
Nine people were killed and 48 others injured in the incident, most of them were with Zheng.
"Autopsies show some of them were gunned down before the blast," said Lu Qingwei, head of the public security of Luxi County, where the mine is located.
Worker discontent at Chinese-run coal mine in Zambia
Barry Bearak in The New York Times:
Hundreds of angry coal miners pushed toward the locked gate at Shaft 3, shouting and cursing as they neared the mine’s Chinese managers, who understood neither the English nor the Tonga words of the mob. As the workers butted up against the fence, the bosses grew more fearful and finally two fired their shotguns.
The Zambian miners scrambled in terror. Bodies pivoted, jounced and stumbled. Boston Munakazela did not know he was hit until he suddenly fell over and saw the blood on his chest and arms.
Carrying coal to China
Elisabeth Rosenthal in The New York Times:
Even as developed countries close or limit the construction of coal-fired power plants out of concern over pollution and climate-warming emissions, coal has found a rapidly expanding market elsewhere: Asia, particularly China.
At ports in Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Colombia and South Africa, ships are lining up to load coal for furnaces in China, which has evolved virtually overnight from a coal exporter to one of the world’s leading purchasers.
The United States now ships coal to China via Canada, but coal companies are scouting for new loading ports in Washington State.
November 22, 2010
Mourning the Shanghai fire
Newspapers, websites and netizens commemorate the victims of the deadly high rise fire i Shanghai on November 15, 2010.