The commonly seen Laiyifen, which sells titbits, sweets and preserved fruits, is now embroiled in this new food safety scandal along with other preserved fruits retailers. Laiyifen's rapturous logo won't reflect the moods of their shareholders and management anymore. more ›

The Shanghai government has announced the names of the 15-member investigation panel which it has assembled to look into Tuesday's subway collision. The panel is made up of two teams -- an 11-member incident investigation team, headed by Qi Jun, bureau chief of the Shanghai Work Safety Administration, and assisted by Shen Weizhong, his assistant bureau chief, as well as a four-member team of expert consultants headed by Liu Ruichang, formerly deputy chief engineer at the Shanghai Railway Bureau. more ›

The China Economic Times is dismantling its investigative reporting team after pressure from the Communist Party. According to CMP, people inside CET are saying a "ridiculous leader" reportedly came to their offices and broke up the investigative unit. The head of that unit, Wang Keqin, reacted to this on his Weibo, saying "Where political power burns books, it will ultimately burn people also. Where political power begins to suppress the voice, if it is not stopped, its next step will be to destroy the witness!" more ›

The 156 households that fell victim to the apartment building fire on November 15 will soon be allowed back into their homes to claim undamaged possessions and evaluate their losses. The companies held responsible for the fire will pay for valuation services, and once their losses have been calculated they may negotiate for compensation. At that point, if the families are still not satisfied, they may then then bring lawsuits. However, many say that property is not the issue. Some families who lost relatives in the fire have filed a petition for further investigations into the fire and have refused to accept compensation (960,000 RMB per victim) until the government responds accordingly. more ›

Here's the latest roundup of information that's surfaced on the fire:
• Eight welders, a number of whom were unlicensed, have been detained under suspicion of sparking Monday's fire on the 10th floor of the building during an “energy saving” renovation project. Illegal multiple sub-contracting and inadequate supervision of the renovation project, said Luo Lin, the head of the fire cause investigation is also to blame. "It was the illegal and irregular construction that caused this terrible accident, which should not have happened and could have been completely avoided," Luo said.
• China has called for a nation-wide overhaul of fire-safety procedures, including the removal fire hazards, education of the public, and implementation of strict accountability. Shanghai Daily reports that any building not meeting safety standards will be shut down, but we're not rejoicing over that news just yet. Wouldn't that be nearly all of them? We'll believe it when we see it. And nobody seems to be talking about how embarrassing this is coming only ten days after China’s “Fire Prevention Day" last Tuesday, where the entire country underwent drills, specifically targeting densely populated urban areas.

How do you effectively carry out the "remediation of civilization?" was a serious question at yesterday's Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Shanghai. We've got a couple ideas, but what Han Zheng and his consorts were trying to say was actually "how do you curtail the illegal activity of black cabs?", which has become a serious issue in the past few weeks. more ›

By Richard Yu more ›

A senior official, Wu Jianping, from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) threw himself off a building on the 2nd of August after being questioned on allegations of corruption. more ›