According to a Chinese publication (that's based here in Shanghai), Google will announce on Monday the day it will finally shutter its operations in China: April 10. China Business News quoted an unnamed Google employee, but follow up calls to Google headquarters have been met by a resounding "no comment." Also no word on whether "operations" means just the search engine or its many other services. Guess we'll find out next week! more ›

So both Myspace and Friendster have their own China versions. Now Kaiser Kuo of Ogilvy Digital China Watch points us to a report on China Business News (第一财经日报) which cites an “industry insider” who says that Facebook plans to release additional language interfaces and intends to enter the China market as early as December this year. The paper also claims that "Facebook has given up its initial plan to set up its own China-based site like MySpace has done with MySpace.cn, but will instead acquire an existing SNS in China." more ›

Chinese media reported yesterday that Guangzhou is set to become the first city in China to be recognised as 'developed' under World Bank standards, which define developed cities as those with a per capita GDP of over US$10,000. more ›

Two reporters, Weng Bao (翁宝) and Wang You (王佑) of a leading Chinese financial newspaper 《第一财经日报》have had their financial assets frozen in connection with a defamation lawsuit filed by Foxconn (富士康), the company that runs the controversial iPod factories in China. It started with this:

On June 15, China Business News published a story by Wang You "Foxconn workers: The machine punishes you to stand 12 hours," describing the alleged harsh working conditions and low pay in the Taiwan-funded company.