Today's Links: Shaolin renovation, Shaolin fakes and China's high-tech eye-spy crackdown

• Shanghai Normal University's Geography vice-dean drowns after saving student's life [Shanghai Daily]
  He Baogen, 45-year-old vice dean of Shanghai Normal University's geography department, has been found dead in a tidal creek at Dongtan wetland on Chongming Island on Friday morning. He was swept away by the rising waters while trying to save a student's life.


• Olympics `like a spiritual event' for Beijing residents [Mercury News]
  "Perhaps the greatest attribute the Chinese are revealing to the world is endurance: With yet a year of hype to come, they show no signs of Olympics fatigue," writes John Boudreau of Mercury News.


• China to refurbish birthplace of Shaolin kung fu [Xinhuanet]
  In a large-scale facelift to the Shaolin Temple area in central Henan Province, where the renowned Shaolin kung fu originated, more than 1,000 enterprises, martial art schools, shops and households covering some 300,000 square meters will be moved away from eight sightseeing areas


• Fake Shaolin masters fail to sneak into Canada [Citynews.Ca]
  A dozen Chinese teens had their plans to smuggle themselves into China blocked before they even got here. The 12 teenagers, aged 17 - 19, had paid $90,000 each to a human smuggler and two coaches from a famous Shaolin martial arts school in order to join a team of kung fu performers at a school in Henan province.


• Zi Beijia jailed for cardboard dumpling hoax [Reuters]
  A court on Sunday sentenced Zi Beijia, a television reporter to one year in jail for fabricating a report that Beijing dumpling makers used cardboard as a filling. The official Xinhua news agency said the journalist was convicted after an open court hearing of "infringing the reputation of commodities". He was also fined 1,000 yuan.


• Jailers sentenced in China tycoon case [Associated Press]
  Four prison officials were sentenced to jail on bribery charges for giving preferential treatment to a jailed real estate tycoon, state media reported.


• China's high-tech eye-spy crackdown [The Age]
  At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognise automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Photo from ShhPeKo.