A crack opens in the Korean wall [Asia Times] The big question on the opening Tuesday of the North-South Korean summit in Pyongyang was whether or not North Korean leader Kim Jong-il would condescend to welcome South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in person, or whether he would delegate that ceremonial chore to his much lower-ranking No 2. Myanmar's neighbours have little influence: Singapore FM [AFP] Myanmar's neighbours have little influence over internal developments there, said......

... at least that is what Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas would have us believe (h/t to Danwei). She recently wrote in to China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou after reading his opinion piece on recent comments by Chinese celebrity Sun Haiying (孙海英) who not too long ago ignited a huge debate with his comments that homosexuality was unequivocally "criminal in nature" ("同性恋就是犯罪“):Dear Raymond The very day that Godless China decriminalized......

If you've been still wondering how the woman who rammed her bike into the bus actually managed to do it, this one takes the cake! Today's Shanghai Daily tells us of a truck that got stuck under a bridge while trying to force its way through on Songxing Road in Baoshan District yesterday at 7pm. In fact:Police said the driver knew the crane bases on his truck were taller than the bridge, but he still......

Shanghai Daily tells us that city officials have shut down Dofor.cn (now taken offline) - a portal here that's been posting videos of the Japanese manga and anime series Death Note which has been banned nationwide in China for supposedly promoting death fantasies: The novel tells the story of a teenage boy who receives a special notebook. Whenever he writes the name of an enemy in the book, along with a description of how and......

Shanghai Daily tells us that all businesses in Xintiandi and along Huaihai Road, "especially foreign-brand stores", must add Chinese names to their signs and must do so before this Sunday. According to Yang Jishi, of the Economic Commission in Luwan District:This is part of a long-term project to crack down on foreign-language-only signs, which not only are a barrier to understanding for most Chinese, but also violate the law on language Hmm. What law, we......

The hostage crisis at the Putuo KFC two nights ago was a shining triumph for the Shanghai police, who managed to kill the bad guy and save the migrant worker's little four-year-old girl. Now, you can relive the glory with this account of the proceedings (in Chinese). Although we would have preferred to see Samuel L. Jackson or Kevin Spacey handle something of this danger, there was some local talent on hand. One of the......

... on the line—June 7-10 are the dates for that annual rite of passage known as the university examination (高考). This year is also special in that it marks the 30th anniversary of the reinstitution of the examinations after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Part of what piques our interest about the examinations are the ingenious cheating techniques that have proliferated with the spread of mobile devices such as phones, laptops, and walkie-talkies. Each year, they......

We are all for this whole harmonious society thing, but when someone sent us this link on popular Chinese message board Tianya today, we couldn’t help wonder ... just what exactly is harmonious these days. We didn’t look at the images posted in the thread (we warn you, don't do it if you don't want nightmares), but they were screen captures from a video uploaded to tudou.com on March 25 (after we protested, the site......

Chinese blogger exposes a 1994 fire that killed 288 pupils as officials fled "A local education official who organised the song and dance performance, Kuang Li, locked herself in the toilet, keeping out children who suffocated, according to Chen's blog. Kuang was jailed for four years." China and Russia accused of arming Sudan "China and Russia are supplying arms to Sudan that are being used to fuel the violence in the Darfur region in violation......

Pornography charges against a 36 year old woman arrested three years ago after taking off her clothes and chatting with other Internet users via webcam have been dropped in Beijing's Shijinshan district after prosecutors found that nude chat rooms were not defined in China's pornography laws. This case is understood to be the first of its kind in Beijing. The news comes amidst the announcement of a new six-month campaign to crack down on online......

Are you in the Chinese stock market? We're guessing the answer is no for most of you — by law, only Chinese nationals are allowed to purchase A Shares traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges. Well, sucks to be you (and us). We're missing out on a get-rich-quick opportunity of a lifetime, as millions of Chinese are swept up in stock trading mania. The International Herald Tribune reports: There is no exact Chinese translation......

AsiaPundit » Blog Archive » iPhone Now Available in China "Even though the official Asian launch date for the Apple iPhone is not until 2008, users of the China’s Taobao auction site can already buy the ‘revolutionary’ phone. No wonder Taobao could beat eBay in the China market ..." (tags: china iphone gadgets tech taobao) Syphilis epidemic raging in China, says study - Yahoo! News "Syphilis, virtually eradicated in China under Mao Zedong, has......

Despite our recent red fog alert, Shanghai can not crack the top five in the rankings of the major Asian cities with the dirtiest air. Here's the top/bottom five: BeijingXi'anKathmanduDhakaNew Delhi Air pollution in these cities is five to six times as high as levels that the World Health Organization considers safe and at least three times as high as levels in the largest European and American cities. The list was compiled by the Asian......

From The Search Engine Journal we discovered that Baidu won an intellectual copyright infringement case against some major music companies. From Interfax: Baidu, the largest Internet search engine in China, won an MP3 copyright infringement lawsuit against seven Hong Kong music companies today, a company official said. The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court overseeing the case ruled that the accusations brought against the Chinese search giant do not have adequate legal support. "This is good......

Many of you might have read our post regarding the horrible mass-slaughter of dogs in August. Sadly, it seems we could be experiencing the third wave of the canine cull, based on this Economic Daily report (in Chinese) that says five major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Wuhan are going to address "dog problems". Tang Yunli, deputy director of Beijing Public Security Bureau, said the bureau is going to extend its administrative reach......

It's good news for those of you who stand accused of one of the nearly 70 offenses that are punishable by death in China. Under legislation enacted on Tuesday, as of January 1, all death sentences handed out by provincial courts must be reviewed and ratified by China's Supreme People's Court. This reverses a 1983 law which gave such powers to the provincial courts in an effort to crack down on rising crime and corruption......

As the convential wisdom goes, China will not respect other's intellectual property rights (IPR) until its own IPR needs protection. If this is true, then IPR in China recently took a significant step forward as the Financial Times is reporting that a litigious Shenzhen USB flash drive manufacturer Netac has hired Morgan Lewis & Bockius to sue New Jersey computer hardware manufacturer PNY Technologies for infringing upon Netac's patent for USB flash memory drives, or......

Web TV might be the answer to the prayers of foreign media companies such as News Corp.MTV and Baidu.com are working together to distribute music videos and other entertainment content online.Wal-Mart is going to invest $1 billion and double the number of its stores in China.Health official Hao Yang says that China is starting to resemble Africa in terms of the AIDS epidemic, with 190 new infections happening per day.AIDS prevention classes piss off the......

The above photo is by Joan Sinclair, whose book Pink Box: Inside Japan's Sex Clubs came out last month. The text in the book (or at least some of it) comes from James Farrer, author of Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai. The online version of Radar magazine has published a selection of Sinclair's Pink Box pics (WARNING: They are not safe for work). Here's a snippet of the magazine's intro:......

A report on Yahoo! China got our attention because of it's uh, attention-grabbing headline: 中国游客海外不文明行为震动高层 ("The uncivilized behavior of Chinese tourists abroad shocks the upper levels of government"). The central government's "Civilization Bureau" recently ran an internet survey and just published the results (in Chinese) a little over a week ago. This includes the top 10 uncivilized Chinese behaviors abroad as well as 20 suggestion about how to improve the situation. It seems that this......

How do you say "casting couch" in Chinese? A young actress named Xiao Qiong started a firestorm after writing on her blog about how she was propositioned by a director who offered her a role in a TV show if she slept with him. An insider says that 60 percent of young talents are affected by this practice.An 11 -year-old Chinese girl has been given a book deal with Harper Collins for a fantasy novel......

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. The reporter was surprised by the reply: No one related to the writing or editing of the new history textbooks would be allowed......

A former Chinese cabinet member (an atheist) and an American evangelist have published a book based on their dialogues about religion. Read it to find out if God really exists.Media reports and interviews with a a Tibetan princess -- the daughter of the 10th Panchen Lama. She's a student at Tsinghua and has recently attracted a lot of media attention.The Chinese drank 30 mln tons of beer last year.China will have its own digital TV......

Shanghaiist reported on the suicide of a Japanese diplomat based here in Shanghai where the theory of his death was that he'd fallen in love with a beautiful Chinese woman (said "honey trap"), found himself in a compromised position, and was then blackmailed by a Chinese intelligence agency, thus leading to his death. The Mainichi Daily News provides us with a report that explains how prevalent the honey trap phenomenon has become: According to Asahi......

A bored Henan man living in Shanghai threatened to bomb the Oriental Pearl Tower. Only 12 people read the post before it was deleted by authorities. He faces up to five years in jail.From People's Daily: Speaking globally, the mainland's universities lag behind on aspects such as school facilities, faculty quality, campus culture and school structure, said Cai Dafeng, vice president of Shanghai-based Fudan University. At least they don't lag behind in anything important!What's next?......

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it......

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddie for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bid's Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has some suggestions to fix that. They're also throwing Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. Yeah, we may have a few issues with our World Cup broadcasters here, but this guy......

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from......

Today's Morning Post was disappointing, but the front page of the Metro Express alone was a treasure trove of notable tidbits: 网上扬言攻击政府被依法逮捕（本市警方破获多起利用网络散布虚假、恐怖信息案件）The police give examples of people who were recently fined or jailed for using the internet to: issue death threats against government workers, incite workers to strike, and create pictures that are critical of the government. They remind the readers to be civilized users of the internet, according to the published law. 珠江口两高速客轮相撞145人全部获救(Pictorial) Two......

In Catholicism related news, Stephen Hawking, world-reknowned theoretical physicist and sometimes Simpsons guest star was just in Hong Kong and is now in Beijing, where he planning on giving talks at the Strings (as in string theory) 2006 conference being held up there. While in Hong Kong, Hawking joked during a talk that the late Pope John Paul II had told him not to study the origin of the universe, saying that it was okay......