Translation of phone calls between human rights lawyer Teng Biao (滕彪) and Chen Guangcheng made yesterday evening while Chen was being held at Chaoyang Hospital. In this exchange, Teng convinces Chen to change his mind about staying on in China and to let the US embassy know he now wants asylum for the entire family. more ›

Turns out all that speculation that blind Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng fled to the US Embassy in Beijing was true. American officials confirmed that, following a six-day stint at the Embassy, Chen left Wednesday to receive medical treatment at a nearby hospital in the city. But it looks like Chen may have been forced out — he told the AP from the hospital this evening that authorities threatened to beat and kill his wife if he refused to leave the Embassy. more ›

China's deputy permanent representative to the UN Wang Min, in an address to the UN General Assembly on Monday, called on the international community to play a "positive and constructive role" in the Syria issue, saying that the UN action on Syria "should comply with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter" and the basic norms guiding the international relations. more ›

In a seminal speech to mark Human Rights Day which commemorates the 1948 signing of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged leaders of the world to “be on the right side of history” and to recognise that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights". It's a moving, impassioned speech which totally earned her the standing ovation at the end, and it's worth 30 minutes of your time. Read the full transcript of the speech here. more ›

The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed a historic resolution on human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity by a vote of 23 to 19 with three abstentions, in Geneva yesterday. more ›

Just when you thought you'd heard the last of Wikileaks now that its founder Julian Assange is facing various legal challenges, the whistleblower site unanimously hated by governments worldwide appears to be sputtering back to life once again. And it appears it's concentrating a bit of its fire power on China for now. more ›

This post promises to make you laugh uncontrollably for about five seconds, then descend into the pits of despair. more ›

Well, this had to happen sometime. In the fallout to the video of US Ambassador Jon Huntsman spotted at the "Jasmine Revolution" protests in Beijing, Chinese internet censors have taken to filtering search results for the Chinese name of the ambassador. more ›

CNNGo has a article detailing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to the Expo over the weekend, of which I've picked the three little factoids I find the most funny. Like most things on this site that are USA Pavilion related, the type of funny they are leans towards that cringe-inducing Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque type of funny. more ›

"As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history." more ›

When we first read that New York Times article about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support of the USA Pavilion effort here in Shanghai, something didn't sit quite right with us. It's not that the facts didn't seem correct or anything - but almost no mention was made about why Clinton stepped in to raise money in the first place. Wasn't there already a group of people meant to do that? more ›

Making a pit stop during the Obama Administration’s Blonde Ambition tour of Asia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a visit to the 2010 Expo site earlier today. Secretary Clinton addressed a squadron of journalists in front of the site for the future United States pavilion, among other things asking for increased contributions from American businesses, as the U.S. had raised two-thirds of the expo participation cost as of September. more ›

While his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been busy meeting up with former US President George Bush, Singapore's ever so feisty and sprightly 86 year old Minister Mentor¹ Lee Kuan Yew has gone halfway around the globe to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington ahead of his debut Asian tour that will include China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Lee's tour also saw him meeting two key Cabinet members of the Obama administration - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. more ›

• Confucius? No, Yao Ming [Reuters] "Instead of a cultural icon, well-known author or scholar, President Barack Obama sought the advice of ... a basketball player as he talked of the importance of strong U.S.-Chinese economic ties. In a speech opening the Strategic Economic Dialogue between the United States and China, Obama - an avid basketball fan and player - quoted China's most popular sports star and Houston Rockets center, Yao Ming."
• Tenenbaum heads to China [The State] "Inez Tenenbaum, the nation's new consumer-safety chief, will make her debut on the world stage this week to warn Chinese and other major Asian exporters to expect tougher regulation of toys, drywall and other products found to have recent defects after entering the United States."
• Key to Chinese mayor's corruption hidden in Buddha's ear [People's Daily Online] "A former north China mayor and his wife concealed about 300,000 U.S. dollars in bribe money in a safe deposit box in a Buddhist temple, hiding the key in a Buddha statue's ear, a court heard Monday. Xu Guoyuan, former mayor of Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is accused of taking bribes worth more than 1 million U.S. dollars."

North Korea had some strong words for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she referred to the country's leaders as "unruly children" and pointed out that even their most steadfast friends, China and Russia, were no longer willing to support their hijinks. The Foreign Ministry issued the following statement, "We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady, as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," adding that "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping." Low blow, North Korea! We're not sure those words are going to convince the world you're not acting juvenile. Source: NY Times more ›

For those following the will they - won't they debacle regarding the United States pavilion at the 2010 Expo, the latest news is that the US will officially be attending. Not only are plans on track to sign a contract, but -what's this?- fundraising is right on target! more ›

A flurry of recent activity regarding the US Pavilion at next year's Expo has resulted in US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirming the United States' participation in the Expo after the USA Pavilion organizers announced PepsiCo signing on in a US$5 million deal. more ›

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were detained by North Korean while filming along the China-DPRK border in March, are now set to face trial for their “crimes.” Pyongyang has said that after an investigation into the matter, the women have been charged with illegally crossing the border and could face up to five years in prison if convicted of espionage. Both women were working for Current TV, a Al Gore-funded “youth” cable news channel in the United States. Source: BBC more ›

The battle to bring the U.S. pavilion to the World Expo in Shanghai seems to just get more complicated as the days count down. According to China Daily, a Chinese-American oil industry executive called James I.C. Chiang is now planning his own vision of what the pavilion should look like: more ›

North Korea has confirmed that it's detaining two journalists it may have nabbed before they had even crossed the border from Chinese territory. The two women, Chinese-American Laura Ling and Korean-American Euna Lee, were accused of ignoring warnings to stop filming across the Tumen river. more ›

• 70 sick in China after eating tainted pig organs [The Associated Press] "At least 70 people in southern China fell ill after eating pig organs contaminated by a banned animal feed additive, state media said Monday. Three people were in the hospital, while the rest were discharged after being treated for stomach aches and diarrhea over the weekend."
• Beijing's Olympic building boom becomes a bust [Los Angeles Times] "By Rodman's calculations, 500 million square feet of commercial real estate has been developed in Beijing since 2006, more than all the office space in Manhattan. And that doesn't include huge projects developed by the government. He says 100 million square feet of office space is vacant — a 14-year supply if it filled up at the same rate as in the best years, 2004 through '06, when about 7 million square feet a year was leased."
• The flaws in Chinese business: Time to change the act [The Economist] "The rapid collapse of economic activity around Dongguan indicates that China’s private companies are being subjected to the same battering as their counterparts in many other countries. Yet it also raises questions about the long-term survival of many of these companies. They have been among the most dynamic components of China’s fast rise towards prosperity. Their turmoil may be transient. Then again, there are also worries that it is in fact tied to profound flaws in the Chinese economy."

She's just jealous Baidu didn't choose her. From ESPN.com: more ›