Just as Sino-US tensions seemed to be easing after months of discontent, the US has risked irritating Beijing a little more. This week, the Washington Post reported that the US State Department has decided to fund the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC), an Internet freedom group run largely by F4lun G0ng practitioners. more ›

• A netizen compares teaching methods in the U.S. and China through the story of Cinderella. While the U.S. version is a little off (can you ever imagine an elementary school teacher telling girls that they're evil if they're ugly?), it's still an apt analysis. [ChinaSmack]
• Another U.S. and China comparison, this one more morbid. While in the U.S., people are fighting to keep abortion a choice, here in China, people are fighting to keep not aborting a choice. [Washington Post]
• A man in Shenyang is now renting himself out as a punching bag for stressed women. Being in Shanghai, we can just use our boyfriends. [Ananova]

A picture says a thousand diplomatic niceties. Apparently, so did Wen Jiabao when he met with Henry Kissinger yesterday for the inaugural China-US Track Two High Level Dialogue in Beijing. We're not sure what that means either, but here's a sound bite for you: more ›

We're not sure why, but Chinese vessels seem to be on an angry, aggressive streak as of late - surrounding and tangling with United States vessels in international waters for seemingly no good reason. The most recent incident being with the U.S.'s USNS Impeccable. more ›

• Boy Killed Anally When Office Chair Explodes [Gizmodo] "Well, stories don't get much worse than this. A 14-year-old boy in China was killed when his chair exploded, sending chunks of metal into his rectum. The bleeding this caused killed him."
• Is anything made in the U.S.A. anymore? You'd be surprised [International Herald Tribune] "The United States remains by far the world's leading manufacturer by value of goods produced. It hit a record $1.6 trillion in 2007 - nearly double the $811 billion of 1987. For every $1 of value produced in China factories, the United States generates $2.50. So what is made in the U.S.A. these days?"
• More than 20 dead in N China coal mine accident [Xinhua] "The accident occurred at about 2: 00 a.m. Sunday at the Tunlan Coal Mine of Shanxi Coking Coal Group in Gujiao City near Taiyuan, the provincial capital, when 436 miners were working underground."

So why is it that the United States might risk “global humiliation for the American people” by not showing up at the Shanghai World Expo? Well, partially because they don't really know what a World Expo is... and partially because it's awfully hard to raise $61 million without any government help. more ›

but there is nothing much we can do." more ›