A group of 1,800 angry workers demanding overdue pay at a cotton mill in Xinhe, Chongming Island have held seven top managers of the Korean-owned mill hostage since Friday, including the chief executive officer of the factory. The news was reported in the Korean Chosun Ilbo, and as Fons Tuinstra of China Herald notes, the Chinese media has been silent on the story because "Chinese media cannot write about such unharmonious behavior". Our own search......

If you guys have passed by CITIC Square on Nanjing Lu in the past month or two, you'd surely have seen that Mont Blanc has taken over the ground level store that used to be occupied by Starbucks, and apparently, they are building the world's largest Mont Blanc boutique right there. All Roads Leads to China reveals that Mont Blanc is paying US$11 per square metre per day, which works out to about US$250,000 per......

So both Myspace and Friendster have their own China versions. Now Kaiser Kuo of Ogilvy Digital China Watch points us to a report on China Business News (第一财经日报) which cites an “industry insider” who says that Facebook plans to release additional language interfaces and intends to enter the China market as early as December this year. The paper also claims that "Facebook has given up its initial plan to set up its own China-based site......

Low-priced Chinese cars quietly gain a foothold in Europe [The Boston Globe] China's quiet inroads into Europe are the first test of rich markets by Chinese automakers as they build dealer networks and deliver small shipments of cars to test the reaction of drivers and auto industry experts. The game the Japanese mastered in 15 years, and the Koreans in 10 will possibly take the Chinese just five years. China coal mine blaze kills three,......

Rumour has it that Shanghai Media Group, the city's largest TV conglomerate which operates 20 television and radio channels, has plans to start a new 24-hour English language news channel. Rejoice all ye who don't have (or can't afford) satellite at home (that includes us)! Well apparently this has been in the works for a year now, and while SMG hasn't jumped pass the final regulatory hurdle, it has already started hiring "hiring English-speaking presenters,......

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......

Okay okay, we've all had a bit of a Macau overdose lately, but we just couldn't resist sharing with you this tid-bit of information that we found on the blog of Telegraph journalist Richard Spencer. He shares a rumour that "the Louis Vuitton store in Macau is, per square foot, the company's most profitable anywhere in the world. And that the big seller is man-bags. The men buy them to put their cash in before......

What did Mattel do to stop the toys? by Fons Tuinstra of China Herald: Even a hundred TV-shows cannot hide that something is seriously wrong in the way quality control is done in this country. And yes, there is now a fair amount of China-bashing going on, but that is very well deserved China-bashing. But the question what Mattel, and other companies, have been doing to stop this scandalous export of faulty products is a......

Shanghaiist is somewhat of a frequent flyer to Beijing, and because he isn't employed by some big multinational but rather runs his own little business, he can only afford to put himself on cattle class and often has to scour the internet for the cheapest available deals. We especially love this nifty little function on eLong.com which shows you the cheapest available flight within a week of your selected departure date. That has worked to......

Yesterday afternoon, Shanghaiist noticed on its Twitter stream that some China-based users were having problems accessing the newly redesigned (wonderful in fact) Danwei site. Blocked blogger, The Weifeng Radish, noted it can only be accessed by an anonymising proxy. Prolific Shanghai blogger and journalist Fons Tuinstra over at The China Herald popped out a post musing about their situation. What I think is happening that the filter systems has been partly automated and triggers off......