Dear Slate, yes there are chocolate bars in China
Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
How AIDS in China is spreading
Shanghaiist Scrabble: We have a winner!
Interview: Kerry Ann Lee, culture shock = inspiration
- China Raises Tobacco Tax Rates [Caijing] "China has raised the tobacco tax to as high as 56 percent in a bid to meet the central government's target of 9.8 percent fiscal revenue growth for 2009, according to the State Administration of Taxation (SAT)."
- Why Do Chinese Save? Boys Want to Marry [NYTimes] "The high Chinese savings rate has been one of the wonders of the world. The household savings rate, as a proportion of disposable income, is 30 percent, and has been rising rapidly in recent years. That figure is twice as high as the highest rate ever recorded in the United States. Traditional explanations for varying savings rates, such as life cycles — working age people save more — and income uncertainty, do not help much in explaining the rapid rise in China. Now two economists say they have found a reason that explains a large part of the increase. China has too many boys."
- China to Amend State Secrets Law, Avoid Internet Leaks [Xinhua] "China's top legislature Monday reviewed for the first time a draft revision to the Law on Guarding State Secrets, underlining the cutoff of Internet or other public network access to the country's confidential information. The draft revision was submitted to the ninth session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC) for deliberation. It had been discussed and passed in April at an executive meeting of the State Council, the Cabinet."
- China Activists Say Dam Will Kill Off Rare Fish [The Wall Street Journal] "Environmental advocates are warning that a planned dam on China's Yangtze River could lead to the extinction of a number of rare fish species, casting a fresh spotlight on the potential environmental costs of the country's huge hydroelectric building program."
- Sweden Expels Chinese Diplomat [The Local] "The Swedish government has expelled a Chinese diplomat following revelations that the Chinese embassy was allegedly involved in spying on political refugees residing in Sweden."
- US Draws Line with China on Climate Technology [Yahoo! News] "Access to green technology is becoming a growing stumbling block in global efforts to fight climate change, with US lawmakers bristling at what they see as China's attempt to "steal" US know-how. China and India have led calls for developed nations to share technology to help them battle global warming as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen meant to seal a successor to the Kyoto Protocol."
- Cell Phone Could Be Music's Savior: Jones [China Daily] A day after announcing that he would compose the theme song for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo, legendary music producer Quincy Jones promised yesterday to save the crumbling global record industry - starting in China. Cell phone could be music's savior: Jones "We are going to reinvent the record business, in China, because it's dead," the 76-year-old producer of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, told China Daily yesterday evening at his Shanghai hotel room.
- Laura Ling, Euna Lee and North Korea [NYTimes] "Another possibility, which I incline to, is that Ling and Lee may have been sold to North Korea by a local guide. If the guide said that it was safe to cross, or that they were still on Chinese territory, they would have believed him. Moreover, by some accounts they were working on a story about human trafficking — there’s a good deal of trafficking of North Korean women and girls into China, into prostitution and to be wives of peasants — and the traffickers could well have tricked them in exchange for a reward from North Korea. A couple of years ago, I set up an interview with a trafficker in that border area, but then backed out when he demanded money; the traffickers may realize that the people to demand money from aren’t the journalists but the North Korean officials. And at a time of crisis, when it is undergoing a leadership transition and a confrontation with the West, North Korea would probably pay well for a few extra bargaining chips in the form of American journalists."
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How much yuan would the local guide in Yanji get as a reward for taking a Korean-American journalist (somebody Kim Jong-il could converse with), Lisa Ling's sister, and the executive producer of a media company owned by former US Vice President and Nobel Prize Money Winner Al Gore to the Tumen River border? The producer, Mitch Koss, escaped capture but I would guess the guide still got around 3 million yuan for Euna and Laura.
Care to share more of your "insider track"? Or are you just another cyber nutcase speculating, with little brain but lots of malice?