On behalf of the outlawed benevolent spiritual group/black renegade cult Falun Gong, the Human Rights Law Foundation has filed a U.S. federal lawsuit against Cisco Systems, claiming they corroborated with the Chinese government in monitoring the activities of dissident groups. more ›

Chinese Minister of Supervision Ma Wen was recently quoted as saying that public servants will soon be required to disclose "detailed information about income, property owned and investments, and jobs held by their spouses and children." Li Fei, who holds an equally important -sounding position in the NPC Standing Commitee, has refused to comment on precisely when, where and how this might be implemented, stating that measures "[will] proceed only after conditions are ripe." Typical. more ›

• Apparently, China's "brownest" city is four times greener than America's greenest. Fabulous! The good news? This is in spite of the huge amount of energy required to heat Chinese homes in winter - and the minimal energy used for that purpose in temperate California. The bad news? China's "green" standing is only temporary. [The New York Times Blog]
• This just in: the Western media is only as free as the powers that be allow. Stop the presses! Say what you want about CCTV, but at least our government owns up to its censorship, proudly flying its black flag. [China Daily]

This may be obvious to anyone who's ever seen cop beat down videos in the U.S., but you probably shouldn't spit on the police. That advice holds true in China. more ›

• To Protect an Ancient City, China Moves to Raze It [NYT] "Over the next few years, city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of this warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved."
• Diabetes more likely to strike the young in Asia [AP] "Without strong government policy, education and good clinical care, Asia's escalating epidemic could "erase economic gains made in recent decades," said Hu, one of the authors. Trends of diabetes in the region are influenced by everything from genetic makeup and cultural differences to smoking and degrees of urbanization, the JAMA study showed. But the most startling findings — which tended to vary from country to country — related to body mass and age."
• China Said to Harass Rights Lawyers [NYT] "Many of the lawyers have taken on cases, involving issues like Tibetan political activism and police brutality, that gained national and even international attention. The advocacy groups, Human Rights Watch and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, called the actions by the legal authorities part of an effort to intimidate the lawyers and their law firms into avoiding sensitive cases."

Which one of these adorable little High School kids went on to become the leader of China? more ›

Hundreds of parents set to the streets on April 15th in a peaceful march, begging for help in finding their missing children. Originally reported by the New Express (translated by Danwei), the parents claim that about 1,000 children have gone missing from the Dongguan area since 2007. At their wits end, they've set out to draw more attention to the apparent, widespread abduction problem. more ›

Protesters have clashed with the police in a Tibetan-populated prefecture of Qinghai province. According to state media, dozens of angry people threw small explosive devices at police after a resident was stopped on the road for an identity check. Tensions in the area are running high, since tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising. The state report did not say whether the protesters were Tibetan. Source: AFP more ›

The CCP warned that 2009 will be "possibly the toughest year" to secure economic and agricultural development since the beginning of the century. A document issued jointly by the State Council and the Central Committee said that the world economy's slowdown would have an increasingly negative impact on the Chinese economy. The best solution for keeping growth up would be boosting rural areas using social security schemes and rural land and employment rights protections. Will 2009 be the year migrant workers actually choose to stay home? Source: Xinhua more ›

Last weekend, we told you that Yahoo! is now apologizing for not telling the full truth to Congress at the February 2006 hearing where Yahoo! was taken to task for its role in the conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. Now both Republicans and Democrats have launched scathing attacks on Yahoo. San Mateo Democrat Tom Lantos has called Yahoo "moral pygmies", and New Jersey Republican Chris Smith compared Yahoo’s cooperation with the Chinese government to companies that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II. more ›

What’s with all the Wangs? That is the question that is stumping the Chinese Government. For well over a billion Chinese people, only 100 surnames are used by some 85 percent of the population, not to mention the fact that many of these names are homonyms. What’s the solution? Well, according to a proposed law, two surnames. more ›

The industry is trying to make 3G services available in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics so that half a billion cell phone subscribers and millions of visitors can stream and download small screen clips of Yao Ming slam dunking his way to gold medal glory. more ›

In spite of the benefit of being ruled by a "living Buddha," decades of planning and a cost of billions of dollars, parts of the Beijing-Lhasa railway, China's "engineering miracle," are sinking. Specifically, those sections where the project attempts to maintain stability atop the seasonal thawing and refreezing of the permafrost, according to Answers.com, engineers built "elevated tracks with foundations sunk deep into the ground, inserting vertical pipes that circulate liquid nitrogen and cold nitrogen gas into the ground, building hollow concrete pipes beneath the tracks to keep the rail bed frozen, and using metal sun shades." more ›

Late last month, we told you about the Shanghai Wild Animal Olympics, and we probably didn't infuse the post with the proper amount of outrage. Thankfully, some commenters picked up our slack and even directed readers to the animalsasia.org website, which includes information on how you can help put an end to such disgusting displays. We will now quote that information here: more ›

Monsters and Critics has broken our hearts with the news that M:I:3 is being blocked by official Chinese Blocking People, those chaps who have the nation's proudest and holiest of jobs -- to stop all that evil foreign stuff coming in and ruining everything. more ›

The majority of Chinese parents are well-versed to the phrase "when in doubt, beat it out", choosing to physically discipline their children, and the poor little tykes are also not getting enough sleep. more ›