Two awards and one honorable mention were given to Chinese photographers at this year's World Press Photo competition, a contest designed to highlight the achievements of photojournalism around the world. Considering all the news that happened in 2011, there was certainly some stiff competition. more ›

Confucius rolled in his grave yesterday as the media trainwreck surrounding the peace prize given in his name culminated for the year with a quiet ceremony honouring this year's winner, Russian prime minister (and soon-to-be president) Vladimir Putin. more ›

The Confucius Peace Prize public relations trainwreck continues with the announcement of Russian prime minister (and soon-to-be president) Vladimir Putin as the winner of the 2nd annual Confucius Peace Prize. Known around the world for his dictatorial ways, forcible silencing of his critics, and for being the "Butcher of Chechnya", the Russian beacon of peace (according to the judges anyway) beat seven other nominees -- Gyaltsen Norbu (the "Chinese Panchen Lama"), Bill Gates, South African President Jacob Zuma, former UN chief Kofi Annan, Yuan Longping, a Chinese agricultural scientist known as the "father of hybrid rice", German chancellor Angela Merkel, and Taiwanese politician James Soong (宋楚瑜) -- to clinch the highly-uncoveted title. more ›

It would have been so much easier if China had put a full stop to the sordid affair of the Confucius Peace Prize, but nope, authorities have decided to charge ahead with their public relations trainwreck. Apparently, a rival group calling themselves the "Confucius Prize for World Peace" quietly emerged on September 21, the International Day of Peace -- that's one whole week before we found out the original organisers had been disbanded. more ›

It's that time of the year again -- Norway's Nobel Committee has met to decide who should be the winner of its peace prize this year. Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland says the choice has "not been particularly difficult" this time round while pundits are placing their bets on representatives of the Arab Spring revolution which swept across the Middle East earlier this year. Among the top contenders are Google executive Wael Ghonim from Egypt, and Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni. Jagland also took the opportunity to defend the decision to award last year's prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, even though that immediately led to frozen Sino-Norwegian ties and possibly made life more difficult for Liu:

"The reactions (from China) were as expected. They were not more extreme than what we expected," he said. more ›

The Ministry of Culture has removed the Confucius Peace Prize away from its erstwhile organisers, the China Native Art Association's Traditional Culture Protection Bureau, and ordered for it to be shut down, saying it had never been given official permission to run the awards. more ›

"Designed for press photographers by press photographers", The Press Photographer's Year is a competition among UK news media that recognizes and showcases press photography. This year, two winners for digital film and multimedia are China-based press photographers Sean Gallagher and Dan Chung, with reporting by Tania Branigan. Adam Dean, now a Beijing-based photographer, also won first prize for his photo essay covering troops in Afghanistan last year (see those here.) Definitely take a minute (if you have a VPN) to watch the very beautifully crafted videos below. more ›

Take a look at the Silver Award winner in the Arts and Culture group from the 7th annual China International Press Photo Contest (CIPPC) that took place in Jiangsu last week. Not to be confused with the World Press Photo awards, the CIPPC is organized by the China Photo Journalism Society and this year included 38,000 photographs taken by 3,300 photographers from 70 countries and regions. This set gives us a peek at Christianity in Yunnan, where the religion has been practised since the 19th century, even among the ethnic minorities. more ›

Photographer Guang Niu of Getty Images won second prize in the General News Singles with her photo of Qinghai earthquake victims being gathered for cremation. more ›

Although last we heard awards were no longer allowed in China, yesterday the man made famous for debunking the credentials of Microsoft China's former head was handed a Righteous Person of the Year Award. Fang Shimin (better known as Fang Zhouzi) was recognized for his devotion to exposing fraud, something he was violently attacked for last year. The organizing committee called him a fastidious fighter who "'constantly throws daggers' at academic fraud." Nice. He received the award along with nine others, including that guy who chased down robbers with his helicopter. more ›

Whatever you think of her acting, Zhang Ziyi has without question been the most visible thespian to break out of China for the last ten years and now, CineAsia is recognizing that by naming her the "actress of the decade". more ›

This is probably one of our favorite Chinese traditions so far: apparently lottery winners, in order to conceal their identities from the populous, dress up in costumes when receiving their fake oversized media checks. This has been going on for a while, and netizens have begun to give awards for the best costumes on Chinese forum sites. It's kind of like a taste of Halloween year round! more ›

And what's more you can vote for us! Yep, That's have opened voting for their annual awards with a whole range of categories from Best Band to Shanghai Hero. There's also a Best of the Web category where this humble blog has received a nomination. Click here to get voting. more ›

One of the winners of this year's Sony World Photography Award at Cannes used Shanghai for his inspiration. Michael van der Bogaard, based in Cologne, Germany, got first place in the Architecture category for a series about Shanghai's less glorious lanes and alleys. more ›

Nominations for the Ninth Annual Weblog Awards will close in around 24 hours. Go make your nominations for Best Asian Weblog and 29 other categories now: http://2009.bloggies.com/ more ›

Amsterdam-based World Press Photo earlier this month announced the winners of its annual photo contest, the world's largest and most prestigious for press photography. Shanghai-based photographer Ariana Lindquist, an American who shoots for the New York Times, TIME and other publications, won first prize in Arts and Entertainment for her portrait of a girl in an anime costume at Shanghai Stadium. We think the least all Shanghaiist readers could do is buy Ariana a drink (that's one drink each, not total). Way to go, Ariana! more ›

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A new directive by the Chinese censorship board, also known as the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has banned producers of erotic movies, including their directors and leading actors, from participation in domestic film awards. Violators may be banned up to five years from the movie industry and recalcitrant studios may even have their licenses revoked. Xinhua quotes a report by the Beijing News that details exactly what kind of content SARFT frowns upon:

The SARFT asked nationwide studios not to produce films with footage of hardcore activities, rape, whoring, obscene sex exposing human genitals, or sex freaks, the newspaper said. Vulgar conversations, nasty songs and sound effects with sexual connotation were also restricted.

Ang Lee's steamy blockbuster Lust, Caution was named Best Film at the 44th Golden Horse Awards in Taipei yesterday, the Chinese-speaking world's most coveted film awards. It also swept away six other awards, including Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay Adaptation, Best Film Score, Best Makeup and Costume Design, and Best New Performer. Here is the list of winners:Best film: "Lust, Caution" Best director: Ang Lee, "Lust, Caution" Best actor: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, "Lust, Caution"... more ›