- The Beijing government has a great plan to ensure that the Bird's Nest stadium built for the Olympics does not become another white elephant. It will turn the area around the stadium into a shopping and entertainment complex over the next three to five years.
- Sarah Brightman has been named the official ambassador of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo for the United Kingdom.
- Ornithologists are excited to discover a new species of birds in the Nonggang region in the south near Vietnam's border. The find suggests the region could be home to many other unknown birds.
- This July, Sichuan Airlines will become the world's first airline to receive an Airbus built outside of Europe -- the A320 jetliner was assembled in Tianjin, China.
- A writers group, International PEN, has called on China to release dissident Liu Xiaobo, who has been detained after he helped craft a pro-democracy manifesto, Charter 08, signed by 300 dissidents and intellectuals.
Photo from arndalarm

Week Around the Ists


Interesting--I just read in the Economist 2009 preview that this year would be a great one for ornithologists in China.
I don't know why this story about the new species has suddenly hit the news. I blogged about it a full seven months ago.
Ooops...too late. The last one has just been eaten.