This time security guards were stabbed to death outside of Kashgar in Xinjiang. [Source]......

In the past 24 hours, the number of Western news agencies reporting details and speculations about Diana O'Brien’s death have multiplied. Shanghai police have stayed quiet on the death though, refusing to report details to foreign press. The result is a series of conflicting stories, most of which point to the model’s death occurring in her own Shanghai apartment building, not on Chongming Island, as we reported yesterday. Some sources say that she was killed......

Here is a warning to all. Don't buy those cute, little baby bunnies off the street or at the flower markets around the city. Shanghaiist is feeling a little broken hearted this morning when we found our little bunny that we had received as an Easter Sunday present dead. Little Massimo only lasted a week. Photo from scruss.com A number of people have told us that the same thing has happened to them. They get......

So you might have heard that Jackie Chan (成龙) recently went to Australia to bury his father, who died of cancer at the age of 93.Well, what you might not have known is that Jackie Chan's father Charlie, aka Fang Daolong, had a whole other family (Jackie's mother was his second wife) that he lost touch with and then had to leave behind in 1949. There was an article called "Enter the Parents" written a......

For Part 1 of this story, click HERE. Shanghaiist is hyperventilating. Just when we thought the worst was over, a new set of pics have surfaced. After looking through the pictures, we had to take a while to recover from the massive nasal haemorrhage we suffered before we could calm down ourselves enough to put this story together (oh how very self-sacrificial!). The surfacing of the new pictures are an embarrassment to the Hong Kong......

What should a Wall Street firm do when it loses billions on risky bets in the mortgage securities market? Have its CEO call the Chinese government for a capital infusion of course. Bear Stearns did it back in October. Yesterday, Morgan Stanley announced a USD $5 billion equity investment from China Investment Corp. after writing down USD $9.4 billion of its mortgage securities portfolio, ouch! China Investment Corp. is the USD $200 billion sovereign wealth......

Today is the 70th anniversary of the start of the Nanking Massacre which took place in 1937, and more than 8,000 people were gathered today in the Nanking Massacre Museum this morning in a memorial ceremony as you see in this picture from Shanghai Daily. The number of deaths that resulted in the six weeks of atrocities after the fall of Nanjing continues to be debated. It ranges, according to Wikipedia, from "some Japanese claims......

WARNING: GORY IMAGES This video clip is circulating big time on the Chinese internet right now, and has received over 470,000 hits and 5,000 comments on Youku within less than a day. And it is just plain disgusting. A security guard at Wenzhou University beats a helpless dog to death as students videotape from above. From the sounds of the students yelling out to the security guard, we imagine they are at a student dormitory.......

Those sounding the death knell for an Apple, China Mobile iPhone partnership maybe a bit premature. On Friday, a China Mobile spokesperson in Hong Kong confirmed(in Chinese) that discussion between the two sides is still ongoing, but didn’t elaborate on any details. China Mobile has bluntly stated that it has no intention of sharing subscription revenue with handset manufacturers, the core of Apple’s business model. And as the overwhelmingly dominant carrier in China, it is......

Déjà vu all over again? Here it is once more, Shanghaiist's nearly quarterly review the Douban book Top Ten List: Annie Baby - "Sunian Jinshi" (Beijing-based author, photographer and blogger who writes about love and self-exploration in the big city.) JK Rowling - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Official Chinese version, published by the People's Literature Publishing House.) Markus Zusak - "The Book Thief" (Australian author of Austrian-German heritage writes a WWII book......

Chronic pain. Debilitating illness. There's little fun to be had from these subjects. So hats off to Shanghai Daily and its over zealous/under zealous/possibly nonexistent subs' desk for throwing a hyperbole cherry bomb in to the toilet bowl of one individual's suffering. The following, which featured in Friday's paper, is best if you imagine it's being read by Peter Cushing: STABBING. Gnawing. Burning. Severe pain can rip your life apart and make you pray for......

Heres' a public service announcement to (illegal) satellite TV users from Shanghaiist: Don't put stuff on top of your satellite receiver box. We had gotten in the habit of placing the occasional DVD or DVD sleeve on top of our satellite box, which is covered by a bunch of small vents. Not long ago, while working at our computer (surprise, surprise) at around 1 am, we heard a popping noise coming from near the TV......

DHL to Invest $175 Million In New Shanghai Facility [WSJ] DHL Worldwide Express Inc. said it will invest $175 million in a new express-delivery hub in Shanghai to serve its customers in China and other countries in northern Asia.Shanghai mulls traffic 'congestion fee' [The Age] Shanghai is considering London-style "congestion fees" for private cars driving during peak hours to ease traffic strains caused by soaring car ownership, local media said.France Gets $29.62B in Chinese Contracts......

Metro news from the local press: The case of the young man who was squeezed to death between the metro train and the glass security doors on the Shanghai Stadium Line 4 platform will begin pretrial procedures tomorrow. The People's Daily has published an overview of new developments in the Shanghai newspaper industry, including a paragraph highlighting the success of the free commuter paper I-Metro Express (I时代报), the only newspaper to be distributed for free......

Overheard in the comment section of our earlier story on the Chongqing cooking oil stampede was the opinion that the pushing and shoving here in Shanghai is much worse than in Chongqing. Agreed. We see so many potential stampedes happening here everyday and wonder why more people are not getting tromped to death on a daily basis here. But this story by the Financial Times tells us a similar cooking oil stampede that occurred right......

Yen Falls as BOJ's Fukui Says No Preset Time for Rate Increase [Bloomberg] The yen fell against all 16 of the most-active currencies as Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said there was no set time for raising interest rates.Survey shows Singapore is Asia's most desirable city to live in [Channel News Asia] According to the latest Country Brand Index, Singapore is the top Asian city to live in. It was also ranked third globally......

If you thought all Uighurs/Xinjiangers were fighting for the independence of East Turkestan, this video might be of interest to you. The Opposite End of China brings to our attention an excellent PBS documentary China from the Inside which features some very interesting footage such as a rare interview with Ismayil Tiliwadi, Governor of Xinjiang and new Uighur members of the CCP taking the communist oath. For some of them, the experience is akin to......

China confirms presence of toxic substance in bead toys [Economic Times] China's quality control watch dog has confirmed that the bead toys which the US and Australia have recalled in millions over safety fears contain toxic substance. US sees no rapid shift in China's currency reserves [AFP] Amid a plunging US dollar, China has again threatened to diversify its mountain of dollar foreign reserves but US officials are unperturbed while experts do not see a......

The idea of Mask Week (11/17/2007-11/24/2007) got us thinking about the air we breathe in Shanghai. We know it's bad for us, we can see the haze nearly every day, but just how bad is it. So we got on the web and found the historical records for Shanghai air quality provided by the Shanghai Environment Education Centre, you can also go here to find records for 84 Chinese cities. Since the beginning of the......

September is quickly sliding into history, which means for all us music fans that the orgy of music festivals Shanghai will experience in the first weeks of October is almost upon us. And of course Shanghaiist is here to bring you the latest in festival news..... The 1234 Beach Rock Festival - A scrappy fighter always getting knocked down but never going out for the count (did that make sense?). Postponed once again, it is......

A New Zealand-born contestant of the first series of Big Brother Australia, Gordon Sloan, has died in Beijing on a suspected heroin overdose. From the Herald Sun: According to a source close to Sloan, the former reality star's parents had travelled from their home in New Zealand after their son was admitted to hospital in a coma on September 1. It is understood the devastated couple opted to turn off the life support that had......

Some things you were never supposed to hear about ... so keep them to yourselves please! Shhhhh. Fons Tuinstra of China Herald shares a rumour that our former mayor might be sent to the gallows:"He is going to be executed for corruption," said a former colleague I met yesterday for lunch when the issue of Shanghai's former party secretary Chen Liangyu came up. "Of course, they have enough proof he is corrupt himself, not only......

People who made the news this week Zhao Yan (赵岩), the Chinese journalist jailed in 2004 while working for the New York Times is expected to be freed this weekend. Zhao was charged for revealing state secrets after a Times report was published that correctly predicted the retirement of Jiang Zemin (江泽民) as president and Communist Party chief. He was also accused of fraud for taking RMB20,000 from a village official. Prior to joining the......

Before we get started on what is happening this weekend in music, gotta admit we accidentally put the wrong Yue Festival link in our last post. So here it is, for all you who want to keep abreast of festival news....www.yuefestival.com. We have also received word that the 1234 Beach Rock festival is being pushed back to October 21st. And now to what is happening this weekend in live music. Norwegian rockers Team Blitzkrieg are......

Shanghaiist finally made it back from the Beijing Pop Festival and had a great time. We give respect to the organizers bringing some great international bands to China, but do recognize that this festival has a lot of logistical and organizational flaws to work out before it can claim to be of global standards. Being great at weaseling our way into places we don't exactly belong, Shanghaiist was able to get on stage during the......

In his latest article on the recent spate of sex scandals and mistress revolts in China, Michael Sheridan of the Sunday Times (UK) dishes out the latest political gossip in Shanghai and has us wondering who his sources are! He reveals: Every Shanghai official above a certain rank has been required in recent weeks to watch tearful video confessions by 11 of their comrades at the centre of a £200m corruption inquiry, Communist party members......

Experts in Mongolian studies who have spent the last year compiling Genghis Khan's code of laws, which is believed to be the world's first constitution say the legendary Mongolian conqueror banned homosexual acts. Under article 48 of the code, the experts say, men who "committed sodomy shall be put to death". Other acts punishable by death under Khan included "damaging grassland with unauthorized excavations or starting fires". Diving deeper into the interpretation of the law,......

Punk might not be dead, but it seems that, due to permit issues, the Exploited tour is. What Shanghaiist can't figure out is why the Exploited, in all their anti-government glory, would even apply for permits (many of the bands who come for China tours do it on tourist visas). Any one who has already purchased tickets for the show will be able to take them back to 4Live for a full refund. In other......

Another week, another round of rumors floating around. Looks like the Busdriver show is going to happen and is scheduled for October 13th at 4Live. What makes it even more exciting is the fact that Yacht, Portland DJ extraordinaire, might be opening for him. Yacht is currently on tour with Architecture in Helsinki and in the past has toured with LCD Soundsystem. Seeing both him and Busdriver on the same stage makes us wet our......

Back in April we did a post on the top ten books favored by the users of Douban.com, a book review and recommendation site. Since that time, tastes have changed and new books have been released so it's about time to take a new look at the site's top ten: JK Rowlings - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Does this need an explanation?) Han Han - "The Glorious Day I" (Magical realism from Shanghai......