Bill Gates enthusiastically confirmed on Wednesday that TerraPower, a company where he serves as Chairman, is cooperating with the China National Nuclear Corporation on the development of a new type of nuclear reactor. The new reactor is said to be eco-friendly, and able to endure any type of earthquake. more ›

China's Confucius Peace Prize, unveiled hastily last year after a bunch of cantankerous Scandinavians had the nerve to award the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese citizen, is back! Among the shining beacons of peace in the running for the highly-uncoveted prize this year is Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, known around the world for his dictatorial ways, forcible silencing of his critics, and for being the "Butcher of Chechnya". more ›

Radiohead is now the latest in a growing (if slowly) trend of Western celebs opening Sina weibo accounts to reach out to their Chinese followers. Last Friday, the English mega-stars made their inaugural "tweet", which was a rather lifeless "testing the weibo." Either they didn't expect the resulting response, or they simply didn't care to draft an initial message with any feeling to the Chinese weibo universe. That intial post has, in four days, been forwarded almost 11,000 times and received 4,100 comments, and they have received over 60,000 followers. more ›

Bill Gates and Baidu CEO Robin Li recently announced the joint launch of an anti-smoking initiative entitled “Alliance for Healthy China”. Their slogan “Say no to forced smoking" is meant to encourage smokers to be respectful of their surrounding and not “force” second hand smoke onto their immediate company. Along with educating the public, this campaign is meant to provide resources for current smokers to explore methods that could help them quit. more ›

This article also appeared on The China Beat and was republished with permission here. It is written by Caroline Reeves, Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel College. more ›

• After reporting that The Office was on its way to China, we offered you an insight on what you could expect.
• We were rather surprised that the Henan Airline investigation revealed that some 200 airline pilots have fake resumes and flying histories. We were even more surprised that these pilots have been allowed back on the flight deck! No matter, we always preferred trains anyway...
• A rather LARGE can of worms was opened when we featured Morrissey in our ‘Quote of the Day’. He referred to Chinese being a ‘subspecies’, see what fellow readers thought here.

Perhaps even more interesting than the fact that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, two of the richest people in the world, were coming to China as part of their Billionaire's Pledge program was the reaction of the Chinese to their call: silence and suspicion. Invitations to join a Sept 29 banquet in Beijing for China's super-rich have gone largely unanswered. more ›

The Shenzhen real estate and hotel tycoon will donate 470 million dollars in cash and property assets to the charity with his namesake: the Yu Pengnian Foundation. This most recent donation will bring Yu’s total to a whopping 1.2 billion dollars in personal contributions—the entire worth of his fortune--and elevate him to the first mainland philanthropist to break the billion-US-dollar barrier in donations. more ›

• While young Chinese are modernizing, they aren't in the way the Western world would think. [Business Week]
• Bill Gates talks about joining Twitter and what he thinks about China. [Mashable]
• As much as we disparage it, the quality of Chinese made products are in fact getting better and better every day. [China Law Blog]

China, the youthful and ever growing country that it is, has taken many lessons from the rest of the world. As a result, great men from other countries have come to be revered by the Chinese for their advancements: from Issiac Newton to Michael Jordan, many have made lasting impressions on the Chinese psyche. In preparation for the 60th anniversary of the PRC, the Global Times compiled a list of the sixty most influential foreigners in the country's short history. We'll give you a few guesses. more ›

Bill Gates has quit from his day-to-day role at Microsoft Corp, but he's not exactly "retiring" — the 52 year old is dedicating himself to full-time philanthropy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest charitable foundation with a war chest of US$37.5 billion, four times the size of the next largest foundation. The amount is set to rise to US$100 billion by the end of Gates' lifetime (Note: The US philanthropy sector is now at US$300 billion). more ›

China currently has no privacy laws, but that may change, if lawyer Yu Guofu from the Beijing-based Internet Society of China has his way. In an interview with the China Youth Daily 《中国青年报》, Yu made the following comments:

There is no privacy protection law in China so far, nor is there a single item in any laws and regulations that covers privacy protection... The only mention of privacy is in a judicial explanation by the Supreme Court of China that focused on the protection of the right of reputation... Moreover, there had been scarcely any research on the right of privacy for a long time in China...

"And let's not forget the bad influence those pictures have exerted on Chinese Internet users which include not only adults but children too," he said, saying that the picture would do "unredeemable damage" to children... more ›

European efforts to encourage a speedier appreciation of the Chinese renminbi will step up a gear this month amid concerns the euro is bearing the brunt of global macroeconomic adjustments. more ›

From Southern Weekend via the Bokee blogs we learned that the controversial Shanghai high school history textbooks—the very ones that were the subject of a New York Times article last year (Sept. 1, 2006)—have been banned. more ›

Image of algae in pond by Wandering in China. more ›

• 3 in US accused of enslaving Chinese acrobats
  Three men enslaved more than 20 Chinese acrobats, feeding and paying them little to work, and confiscating their passports and visas.


• 'Mass incidents' on rise as environment deteriorates
  Chinese people's refusal to accept an ever deteriorating environmental situation has resulted in a rising number of "mass incidents", the country's chief environment official said on Wednesday.


• Becoming Bill Gates' right-hand man
  Showing signs of genius even as a young boy, it was not surprising that Dr Zhang Yaqin would rise to become a right-hand man of the world's most powerful billionaire.

...says the Chinese female population. According to China Daily, the Hong Kong superstar topped the list of most desired sperm surveyed by 1000 women and conducted by Self Magazine. The women cited his good looks and wealth. Right on his heels, in second place, was none other than Bill Gates, also due to his wealth great charm and good looks. At a measly and disappointing tenth place came Brad Pitt. more ›

We're not sure if we like weird news because it proves how normal we are or just because it proves that the real world is stranger than fiction and hence, not boring. Here's a run down of news items we've come across recently: more ›

A Chinese reporter recently called the Shanghai Education Bureau to find out what was going on with regard to the newly revised high school history textbooks that supposedly minimize Mao and other Chinese historical figures and represent a somewhat radical departure from the kind of history taught in China in the past. more ›

There's an interesting piece in the Shanghai Daily today about the habits of China's rich, who, instead of learning from the moral paragon that is Warren Buffett, are spending more money on themselves. Says the report: more ›

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called How to Get the Guy that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. more ›

胡锦涛主席启程出访五国
Chairman Hu Jintao sets out to visit five countries, including 美利坚合众国 (the USA). Did you hear about the dinner at Bill Gates' house? more ›

There are a few Microsoft fanbois (or is that fanboys?) among Shanghaiist staff. (Emphasis on few.) And not even they (well, notably this contributor) would deny that the glory days of the original MS-DOS came and went long ago, along with our snappy 286 computer and dazzling EGA monitor. But, maybe we're all wrong. What’s old is new again, and DOS is making a comeback, along with bell bottom jeans and throwback jerseys. Walk around Beijing’s Bainaohui/百脑汇 (means “where a hundred brain/computer meets” .. clever, eh?) computer market, and you would find the latest engineering marvels, courtesy of folks at Intel and AMD, running on -- you guessed it -- MS-DOS. more ›

The Rolling Stones arrived in Shanghai yesterday and the media noticed. We read a couple of these stories before we got bored. more ›

Phillyist notes a fistfight between local pols that leaves one man down for the count. Jehovah's Witnesses get a Philly contributor out of bed, things get a little geeky with a film festival and geeky gets taken to a whole new galaxy when they talk with the Dragon Queen of the Dark Kingdom. more ›

This story tells us that Shanghai's Madam Tussauds museum will open May 1 and feature 21 wax figures of "celebrities like Jackie Chan." And we always though Jackie was one of a kind. What other celebrities are like Jackie Chan, you ask? Here's a sampling: more ›

Several days ago, we told you about Chinese blogger Anti getting muzzled for his recent reports about the Beijing News imbroglio. Now, China blog watcher Rebecca MacKinnon reports that it wasn't the Chinese censors that put the kibosh on Anti's MSN Spaces blog -- it was the friendly folks at Microsoft. MacKinnon's post is well worth a read. Blogger and Microsoft employee Robert Scoble is pissed at his company and has offered Anti an uncensored forum to guest blog on his site. (Anti, by the way, seems to have resuscitated his Blog-City blog, which, like all Blog-City blogs, is blocked in China.) It's not a good PR day in the blogosphere for Microsoft -- even the right-wingers are bashing Bill Gates for cuddling up with the "commies." We at Shanghaiist, proud Apple users, doubt Mr. Bill has ever even heard of Mr. Anti. But perhaps this latest development will help shed some mainstream light on the prickly issue of Western companies aiding and abetting China's internet police. more ›