Extra! Extra! Press freedom, flu$hing and river dolphins

• China Southern airlines discovers that it takes about a liter of fuel to flush the toilets on a plane and is now urging flyers to get it out of their system prior to flying. Or you could just not flush -- hey, others do it.
• This news is about a week old, but looks to be on-going: protests near the Hongqiao airport about unfair housing compensation. Several weeks ago their protests ended up blocking traffic, and recently they've been doing sit-ins. The Hongqiao area transportation is undergoing major changes in the leadup to the World Expo.
• Free reporting for Western journalists? No more getting permission to interview people first?
• A Belgian Senator conducts his own investigation into organ harvesting and tourism in China. He finds out that kidneys cost 50,000 Euros and that it's best to get one now, as supplies run low during February. Some Singaporeans are also in the market for kidneys.
• Kazakhstan might have deported a Chinese Uighur asylum seeker.
• In slightly less political news, Bruno Banani's underwear is getting ready to enter the Chinese market.
• Half of Chinese originated malware and spam is looking for your online gamer passwords, while 7.5 percent is looking for your IM messenger passwords.
• Scientists have not been able to locate a living river dolphin in the Yangtze River after spending 26 days combing 1,700 kilometers from Yichang to Shanghai. However, the scientists believe that it's still too early to say for a fact that the dolphin is now extinct.
• Some university students got together and made a digital video (DV) film about Ma Jiajue (report in Chinese), the university student who murdered four of his roommates and stuffed their bodies in a closet. The movie was shown at some universities in Xi'an and around China. We hope it comes to one of Shanghai's schools or DVD shops.
• Writer/blogger Xu Zhiyuan talks about how empty and beautiful Shanghai is (in Chinese).
• The groundwater is polluted in 90 percent of China's cities
• The youngest man on Forbes list of the 400 richest people in China got sentenced to life in prison for financial fraud.
• Two senior Shanghai officials dismissed from their posts as part of the snowballing corruption probe.
• At least someone can claim some kind of victory against the Iraqis: China beats Iraq 1-0 in a first round soccer match.
• Brilliance Auto has clinched China's largest ever auto export deal. Their cars will be headed to Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Poland among other European countries.
• There's a wall in Shenyang where young people write and post their wishes, dreams, troubles, and secrets.
• The Carlyle Group spent $120 million USD on some villas in Minhang because you can't rule the world without ruling part of China.

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