Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were detained by North Korean while filming along the China-DPRK border in March, are now set to face trial for their “crimes.” Pyongyang has said that after an investigation into the matter, the women have been charged with illegally crossing the border and could face up to five years in prison if convicted of espionage. Both women were working for Current TV, a Al Gore-funded “youth” cable news channel in the United States. Source: BBC more ›

North Korea has confirmed that it's detaining two journalists it may have nabbed before they had even crossed the border from Chinese territory. The two women, Chinese-American Laura Ling and Korean-American Euna Lee, were accused of ignoring warnings to stop filming across the Tumen river. more ›

Here, Shanghai, were your favourite stories for the month of October: more ›

Georgia Popplewell of Global Voices Online has offered a great summary of reactions from the international blogosphere to Friday's announcement that former US vice president Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. more ›

As we get closer to July 7, the day of Al Gore’s Live Earth concert, more info has popped-up on the official artist line-up in Shanghai: more ›

Hear ye! Hear ye! Tomorrow night, Brearley Architects and Urbanists will be hosting a special event with Roots & Shoots, the youth arm of the Jane Goodall Institute. more ›

Don't you feel cooler already? At least that’s how we felt when we saw the advertisement for the "Ice World" in Longhua Tourism City. Yes, we know we are very late on this — apparently Longhua's Ice World has been open since last May, but it’s in Longhua Toursim City, so forgive us (we don’t really go to tourist spots much in our hometown). Oh, and if you want to check this ice world out, you have about five days — it's some kind of traveling thing and its year in Shanghai is almost up. By chance, we saw an ad for it in the subway today. more ›

Or more like who won't be performing. We've already told you about Live Earth, Al Gore's 24-hour, 7-continent series of concerts on 7/7/07. Well, lists of performers at different venues (cities participating are: East Rutherford, New Jersey [near New York]; London; Rio de Janeiro; Maropeng [near Johannesburg]; Tokyo; Shanghai; and Sydney) are starting to be announced. First up, the US and the UK. more ›

What have we, what have we, what have we done to deserve this? more ›

Celebrated American writer and critic Gore Vidal was interviewed by former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr on Sunday at Glamour Bar before a full audience as the opening speaker for the 2007 Shanghai International Literary Festival. Over his career which spans more than 60 years, Vidal has produced novels, plays, screenplays, and numerous essays and pamphlets, and most recently, he published his memoirs, Point-to-Point Navigation. more ›

star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet. more ›

The Washington Post reports that the former next president of the United States, Al Gore, is going to put on some massive live shows to help persuade the world to take global warming and climate change seriously:

At the news conference Thursday announcing this summer's ambitious "Live Earth" concerts -- designed as an exercise in "mass persuasion" about threats of global warming -- Al Gore described his vision: a 24-hour musical extravaganza across seven continents, featuring as many as 150 of the world's top recording artists, introduced by an army of "celebrities and thought leaders" (think: Cameron Diaz and Richard Branson), playing before a total live audience of a million people, and reaching 2 billion more via television, radio and the Internet on July 7.

The foreign cities hosting the stadium-size concerts will be Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, Rio and Kyoto, Japan.

The question posed by one Glenn Beck, a program host for CNN Headline News, during his nationally syndicated radio program. Shanghaiist learned of the story from Mediamatters.org: more ›

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. more ›