Results tagged “crackdown”

We always thought it looked kind of cool in old Yakuza/Triad gang movies, but when we actually hear about people cutting off their own fingers to prove a point, we're a little more disturbed than excited. A driver was caught in one of Shanghai's recent black cab dragnets, where police officers pretend to hire cars illegally functioning as cabs, and then fine them.

Shanghai Daily has some startling statistics about drunk driving in our city - according to a study released yesterday, we have almost double the amount of fatal road accidents related to DUIs (8.3%) than that of the national average (4.16%). Last year, over 6% of traffic accidents in Shanghai were caused by drunk driving.

"Those who drive dare not to drink, those who drink dare not to drive" is a particularly apt and Chinese way to summarize the philosophy behind the recent crackdowns on drunk driving in Shanghai. Sina News recently published a Cops-esque article about dragnets set up at hotels around the city, which captured more than 1200 drunk drivers in just the last ten days. The drama included stakeouts of hotel parking lots, intersection checkpoints, and even searches for "sleeper cars" with drunk drivers trying to "sleep it off". Once caught, techniques of avoiding arrest in Shanghai range from the internationally popular "drink two bottles of mineral water" to the less palatable "wash your mouth out with soap". It seems the Shanghai police are serious about this campaign: they've even forced on-duty policemen to turn off their mobile phones to avoid "preferential treatment" of suspects. Amazing!

We already know about the Chinese government's obsession with blocking porn. It's brought us the web portal clean up, the Green Dam and - most recently - the heinous Google block. But now they're even tearing down websites that are about sexual health.

Now that the various politically sensitive anniversaries are over in the region, Tibet has been reopened to foreign tourists. China Daily said on Sunday that a group of 11 German travelers had arrived in Lhasa for a six-day tour and would be seeing various key scenic spots before leaving for Nepal. They are the first officially allowed visitors since February, near the start of the Tibetan New Year - which was unofficially boycotted by Tibetans over the government crackdown on riots last year. Source: AP

It's been a month since the online internet porn crackdown, and now China is planning to expand its crusade to cellphone websites, chat rooms, video download services and instant messenger groups.

Looks like the life of that satellite dish you have covertly installed on your patio may be coming to a premature end if the Shanghai government has its way.

UPDATE, Friday 9:45 am: The show will go on ... at Windows Tembo.

Wan Yanhai