France24 reports:

The buoyant market for Chinese contemporary art over the last few years has made millionaires in the country. But the financial crisis has led to a massive slump in demand for works.

If you've been following the exploits and downfall of Bernie Madoff and his $50 billion Ponzi scheme, you'll know about some the high profile "investors" that he's cheated, ranging from the Wilpon family (the owners of the New York Mets) for $300 million to Steven Spielberg. Other institutions that were tempted by his supposed high return hedge funds are listed here. more ›

Tudou cofounder and mastermind behind the Chinese online game site game.com.cn (we wonder how much he paid for that domain name!) Marc van der Chijs seems to think so:

This week we were analyzing the traffic figures on our Chinese online game sites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com, when we noted a strange effect. During weekdays there was hardly any growth on our portals, but on weekends the growth was similar to what we were used to. We looked a bit deeper into this and may have found a reason for this: staff in companies play less online games during working hours (normally we see a spike in traffic around 11:30 AM and from 4 PM onwards). more ›

Wang Chen: China Registers Historic Progress in Human Rights [Xinhua] more ›

The latest data shows that China's output has fallen to a seven year low. The forecast for China's economic growth has been revised downwards to between 9.5% to 10% this year and 8.8% to 9.3% in 2009 — news that makes you go awwwww shucks we know, but economists are saying the reduction of even 1% in economic growth in China will have a massive impact and we're getting a glimpse of that right now. Even the ayi at our local All Days convenience store has been lamenting over poor sales, believe it or not. All across Guangdong province and elsewhere, factories are shuttering down and people are getting laid off. Jobs are a lot harder to come by and consumer sentiment is down. As usual, it is the people at the lowest rung of society who will be hit hardest, and China's greatest challenge now will be to tackle the growing social divide. more ›

In a new dispatch on how the American brand has been dented by the ongoing financial crisis, AFP says Chinese accounting firm Lehman Brown which has long been threatened with lawsuits from a "certain Wall Street investment bank" is now "suddenly open to a name change":

CHINA-BASED accountants Lehman Brown refused to budge when lawyers acting for a certain Wall Street investment bank sent threatening letters demanding they change their name. more ›

Hot on the heels of the widely-discussed closure of the Hong Kong-listed Dongguan-based toy manufacturer Smart Union comes the news that yet another toy factory — this time a much smaller one — has gone bankrupt. Once again, the local government has come to the rescue, picking up the tab for lost wages that the now jobless employees are demanding to prevent their anger from boiling over. Do we see a pattern for the future? more ›

As the United States and Europe continue to reel from the financial fallout, Asia is heaving a collective sigh of relief that this time, it is at least not their fault. Iceland's biggest banking crisis ever has forced its almost bankrupt government to turn to Russia for a US$4 billion loan, raising eyebrows everywhere as to what this means for geopolitics in Europe. more ›

Meanwhile, the Chinese have reduced exports by over eight percent, idled more than 60 coal plants and announced they will lower import tariffs on the commodity, all because of shortages. It’s more than foreign competition and transport prices the country has to worry about — energy supplies within the PRC are dwindling to dangerous lows. We in Shanghai got a taste of what such scarcity might mean when blackouts struck the scorched city earlier this month. more ›