• So while the actual full solar eclipse over summer turned out to be a rainy, unseen affair, today there'll be a partial solar eclipse... and you may actually be able to see it! Catch it between 3:39pm and 5:15PM today. At 4:57, around 80% of the sun will be covered. [Shanghai Daily]
• Shanghai has just overtaken Tokyo as the world's busiest stock market in Asia, with shares worth $5.01 trillion changing hands compared to Tokyo's paltry $4.07 trillion. [Business Week]
• Pro tip: When trying to kill yourself by jumping, don't do it from a short height and with your blowup sex doll. A Shanghai man found that out when his inflatable pal broke his fall, saving him. [ChinaSMACK]

• The WSJ pours cold water over Warren Buffet's darling, BYD, pointing out that their oft-regaled batteries are produced using 15-year-old methods: cheap manual labor that scraps 15 to 30% of its produced batteries because they fail to meet quality standards. [WSJ]
• The controversy surrounding the suicide of a young woman at Shanghai Maritime University has underscored the alleged lack of sensitivity to the problems of out-of-town students in Shanghai's many colleges. [China Daily]
• A guard at one of those black jails in Beijing, the ones used to keep protesters from reaching Zhongnanhai, was sentenced to eight years in prison for raping a young female detainee. [Associated Press]

• China's Top Muckrakers Stop Digging [Foreign Policy] "There are no pyres of magazines burning, no information police combing the newsstands every morning. Magazine censorship in China is banal. Almost all of the control has long been done in-house before publication, by reporters and editors who know just how far they can and cannot go. The closest many private magazines get to an official censor is someone they call "Teacher," sent from their own publishing houses, to patrol content. But these days, it's not just editors who are drawing in the lines. It's the investors — the owners and backers of China's few independent media outlets. And there is no better example than Caijing, China's leading business magazine, for which I used to work as an editor."
• Tanks out in Beijing in 60th anniversary rehearsal [The Associated Press] "Tanks, armored personnel carriers and rocket launchers rolled along a major Beijing boulevard Sunday in practice for a parade next month to mark China's 60th anniversary. The main east-west artery of Beijing was closed for a rehearsal of the elaborate military parade planned for Oct. 1, when the People's Republic of China celebrates six decades since its founding. The parade is intended to highlight accomplishments China has made in its defense sector."
• China Urged to Subsidize 'New Energy' Vehicles [WSJ] "The head of BYD Co., one of China's leading makers of electric vehicles, urged the Chinese government to subsidize private purchases of all-electric battery cars and other "new energy" vehicles, saying their widespread adoption in China depends on it. Speaking at an industry conference Sunday, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said a lack of consumer incentives and subsidies has kept BYD from making a plug-in hybrid car available for private buyers. He warned that a continued lack of government assistance might doom all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the marketplace because of their currently high cost."

• China's communists celebrate with 'red tourism' [AFP] "Sixty years after founding the People's Republic of China, the communist regime is keeping the revolutionary fires burning while promoting its version of history through "red tourism" destinations such as that in the eastern city of Wuhu."
• Google to "Develop" 10,000 Hangzhou SMEs [JLM Pacific Epoch] "Google plans to "develop" 10,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province over the next three years, reports Today Morning Express quoting Google Greater China Director and General Manager of Sales Song Zhongjie. Song said Google plans to double its Zhejiang distributors and employees in 2009. The Hangzhou government aims to help 10,000 SMEs enter the e-commerce industry each year, said Song."

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