The China touring car championship gets going this Sunday with the first of ten rounds happening in Shanghai. Take a look at a roundup of the championship and it's cars and contenders. more ›

General Motors (and its JV partner, SAIC Motor Corp.) unveiled a new electric concept car today that's supposed to be great for cities like ours. Shown for the first time in Shanghai, it's called the EN-V a.k.a. "Electric Networked-Vehicle." more ›

• So while the actual full solar eclipse over summer turned out to be a rainy, unseen affair, today there'll be a partial solar eclipse... and you may actually be able to see it! Catch it between 3:39pm and 5:15PM today. At 4:57, around 80% of the sun will be covered. [Shanghai Daily]
• Shanghai has just overtaken Tokyo as the world's busiest stock market in Asia, with shares worth $5.01 trillion changing hands compared to Tokyo's paltry $4.07 trillion. [Business Week]
• Pro tip: When trying to kill yourself by jumping, don't do it from a short height and with your blowup sex doll. A Shanghai man found that out when his inflatable pal broke his fall, saving him. [ChinaSMACK]

• China's Top Muckrakers Stop Digging [Foreign Policy] "There are no pyres of magazines burning, no information police combing the newsstands every morning. Magazine censorship in China is banal. Almost all of the control has long been done in-house before publication, by reporters and editors who know just how far they can and cannot go. The closest many private magazines get to an official censor is someone they call "Teacher," sent from their own publishing houses, to patrol content. But these days, it's not just editors who are drawing in the lines. It's the investors — the owners and backers of China's few independent media outlets. And there is no better example than Caijing, China's leading business magazine, for which I used to work as an editor."
• Tanks out in Beijing in 60th anniversary rehearsal [The Associated Press] "Tanks, armored personnel carriers and rocket launchers rolled along a major Beijing boulevard Sunday in practice for a parade next month to mark China's 60th anniversary. The main east-west artery of Beijing was closed for a rehearsal of the elaborate military parade planned for Oct. 1, when the People's Republic of China celebrates six decades since its founding. The parade is intended to highlight accomplishments China has made in its defense sector."
• China Urged to Subsidize 'New Energy' Vehicles [WSJ] "The head of BYD Co., one of China's leading makers of electric vehicles, urged the Chinese government to subsidize private purchases of all-electric battery cars and other "new energy" vehicles, saying their widespread adoption in China depends on it. Speaking at an industry conference Sunday, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said a lack of consumer incentives and subsidies has kept BYD from making a plug-in hybrid car available for private buyers. He warned that a continued lack of government assistance might doom all-electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the marketplace because of their currently high cost."

The Shanghai 2010 Expo is looking for volunteers of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities, and if you're a soon-to-be college graduate, you're probably still looking for a job. more ›

Chery seemed to be the only car on the lot to have a functioning electric car (the Riich M1) but other car makers who have jumped on the green bandwagon included Peugeot, BMW, Volvo, Mercedes Benz and Hyundai. more ›

• China Daily Assails Prisoner Abuses [NYTimes.com] "Inmates in China’s 2,700 pretrial detention centers suffer bullying and torture at the hands of fellow prisoners and police officers, and some experts want a neutral body to take the centers out of police control to curb the abuses, the state-run English-language newspaper, China Daily, reported on Tuesday."
• Safer Battery Technology Gives China an Edge in Developing Affordable Electric Cars [WSJ] "China’s government is beefing up support for the development of 'new energy' cars, because it thinks China can use electric vehicle technology to leapfrog into the forefront of the global auto industry."
• China spearheads surge in state-sponsored executions [The Independent] "Executions of prisoners almost doubled last year - predominantly because of the Chinese government - according to a report by Amnesty International. Death sentences handed down by China for crimes including tax evasion and bag-snatching represented three-quarters of the 2,390 executions carried out around the world, up from 1,252 in 2007. China's resumption of its death penalty programme comes after a dip in executions during the lead up to the Beijing Olympics that were held last year."