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China wrote history this week after gaining approval for oil exploration in the Amu Darya Basin in Afghanistan, making it the first international oil deal made by Afghanistan with a foreign country in several decades. more ›

China has got the entire world's market of religious paraphernalia cornered. Not only have Chinese manufacturers been making everything from statues of Guru Nanak (revered by the Sikhs), to Hindu gods such as Shiva, Vishnu and Ganesh, to the Virgin of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico, they've also been edging out producers of Ramadan lanterns and keffiyeh's in the Middle East. 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 ›

On Tuesday, the United Nations General Assembly voted 93 for, 55 against with 27 abstaining to reinsert 'sexual orientation' into a resolution condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions. It was removed in November in a move led by African and Islamic countries, but brought back for another vote following the United States' insistence. more ›

It was probably expected that, like the recent Afghanistan war and Iraq war dumps on Wikileaks, the newest release of U.S. diplomatic cable transfers would no doubt contain a lot of stuff everyone knew already, but that at least a few of the confirmations would include amusing details and at least some connections would come as a surprise... like the stuff about China. more ›

Rarely would one associate the words 'paradise' with 'dictatorship'. However, North Korea, at least if its pavilion at the upcoming Expo is anything to go by, would care to differ. Thanks to Shanghai Scrap's Adam Minter, we've been treated to a few inside shots of a building whose walls bear the title 'Paradise for People.' Readers, judge for yourselves whether the interior matches up to your ideas of Pyongyang. more ›

• Earlier, the South China Morning Post accidentally put the Chinese name for Hu Jia, human rights activist (currently under arrest and recently denied medical leave), in a story about Hu Jintao. ESWN garnered reactions from the press. [ESWN]
• We've mentioned tongqi - the wives of gay men - and their troubles before. But, not that anyone needed reminding, life isn't easy for the other half either. Here's a good piece on why gays decide to marry, even when they're absolutely sure of their sexual orientation [Christian Science Monitor]
• "All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built,ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable. Do China’s grand designs promise the transformation,at last, of a star-crossed continent? Or merely its exploitation?" [The Atlantic]

Today and tomorrow, President Hu Jintao will attend a nuclear security summit in Washington to discuss potential UN sanctions against Iran. China, who depends on Iran for 11% of its energy needs, has been hesitant in joining the US, UK, France and Germany in putting together a set of sanctions against the country. more ›

• Oh look, it's like the Chinese media just discovered the 5 mao army for itself and it wants to assure people that, for the most part, they don't exist. Go to the last page for a hilarious list of Dos and Don'ts for internet commentators. [Global Times]
• As Google stands shoulder to shoulder with China's citizens to gain more rights and freedoms, the government pushes back even harder to smother would-be social progress. [WSJ]
• Chinese internet authorities blame the U.S. for its' porn problems, and use this as an excuse to tighten online controls. [Forbes]

• The best way to show how hot the earth will be (thanks to global warming)? Strip off your pants in public. 20 people did just that in Guangdong. [Treehugger]
• Xinjiang is continuing to lift communications restrictions, including on international calls and *gasp* the internet? [Xinhua]
• Exactly how much have officials swindled out of China? It's hard to say, but a 2004 study places it at $50 billion USD. And this is before the stimulus. No wonder Beijing keeps on holding corruption conferences. [China Media Project]

China has a moratorium on building golf courses, so how are we now getting 22 of them that take up an area 1.5 times the size of Manhattan on Hainan Island? Shanghaiist founding editor Dan Washburn takes an in depth look at Mission Hills Hainan. [Financial Times Weekend Magazine] more ›

After the daily news showers we got on protests and violence in Iran thanks to its disputed election, here comes a movie tip for the one who wants to get a closer look at Iran and a whole other president campaign that once traveled the country. more ›

• China on Iran (Not the Party Line): Letter from China [The New Yorker] "The most interesting Chinese reaction to the events in Iran is never going to be found in the Chinese newspapers. (The state-run press is, not surprisingly, adhering to the principle that all politics is local, so it has been consistently arguing against any disruption of the prevailing political order. On Tuesday, that meant, for instance: “Iranian Exile Groups Want to Use the Chaos to Overturn the Ruling Government.”)"
• Why size is everything in China [FT] "Big eyes, big noses, big breasts and now humungous Hummers - China seems to be indulging an obsession with size, just when the rest of the world is learning the virtues of moderation. In Shanghai, for example, business is booming on eyelifts, noselifts, chestlifts and other surgery aimed at enlarging classically Asian narrow eyes, flat noses and unobtrusive mammary glands. At the Shanghai Time Plastic Surgery Hospital, Dr Liao Yuhua says business is up 40 per cent since the end of last year - not despite the global economic crisis, but because of it."
• Plywood Infernal [Shanghai Scrap] "I was more than happy when told that - as part of something else I was doing - I would have the opportunity to visit a very large plywood factory in a northern Chinese city that manufactures several types of wood products (for various reasons I won’t go into now, I can’t and won’t reveal the name or location of this factory). Over the years, I’ve visited facilities where safety and environmental conditions were abominable; but I can say, I’ve never left any of them feeling as physically and emotionally upended as I felt after exiting this plywood plant."

On June 12, the tenth ever Iranian presidential elections were held in Iran and two days later, the publicized outcome catalyzed an explosive reaction. more ›

• B.C. model's killer sentenced to die in China [CTV British Columbia] "He has two years to show good behaviour and if he proves this his sentence could be lowered to a life sentence to be served in jail or even lighter depending on his performance," CTV's Beijing Bureau Chief Steve Chao reported Friday.
• China's last eunuch spills sex secrets [Reuters] "Only two memories brought tears to Sun Yaoting's eyes in old age -- the day his father cut off his genitals, and the day his family threw away the pickled remains that should have made him a whole man again at death...This turbulent life has been recorded in the "The Last Eunuch of China" by amateur historian Jia Yinghua, who over years of friendship drew out of Sun the secrets that were too painful or intimate to spill to prying journalists or state archivists."
• Lonely Boys and Losers: Are we overstating the fenqing phenomenon? [Jottings from the Granite Studio] "I don’t think that fenqing can be defined by a particular perspective or viewpoint. Certainly adopting the CCP or Han nationalist worldview doesn’t make one a fenqing... For me, the defining characteristic of a fenqing is not strong belief in a particular view, but rather an inability to accept that other valid perspectives might exist."

"Up to 5 percent of homosexuals in the city were infected, compared with 0.5 percent of women sex workers, said He Xiong, the Beijing Centers of Diseases Control and Prevention deputy director." more ›

According to the Wall Street Journal, a lawsuit against the Bank of China has been filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that Bank of China transferred millions of dollars for terrorist groups bent on attacking Israel, ignoring demands by Israeli counterterrorism officials to halt the practice. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of more than 100 victims of terrorism in Israel and alleges that the money was transferred for the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Iran and Syria, and processed through Bank of China's branches in the U.S. and China. "I don't know about the matter," Wang Zhaowen, spokesman for the bank, told Dow Jones Newswires. According to one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, Bank of China now has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit under U.S. legal procedures. more ›

Benjamin Boukpeti: Picked up the first medal for Togo bronze in the men’s slalom kayak event but the French-born sportsman has only been to Togo once as a child to visit his paternal grandmother! According to Reuters, Boukpeti "only decided to compete for Togo when it became clear he was too old to make it into the far more competitive French team". more ›

The idea is simple: get five internationally reknowned directors to make short, impressionistic films about Beijing, showing the people of Beijing in their everyday lives and as they prepare for the Olympics—and in the kindest light possible. The five filmmakers were: Patrice Leconte (France), Andrew Lau (Hong Kong/China), Majid Majidi (Iran), Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy), and Daryl Goodrich (UK). You can find a rundown of each film's style and content as well as a link to each one.Whatever their differences in style and subject matter, they are all undeniably and unforgivably cheesy, like postcards of moving images. They remind us of those insipid China Eastern Airlines commercials—except worse—because you have to take into account that these were made by men (not a woman in the bunch) that have, at some point in their lives, made films that were actually fit for human consumption.There's a little voice inside our head that tells us that no one likes the guy that takes things a bit too seriously and can't see the light-hearted side of things—it's the Olympics after all, and Pollyannish is to be expected, Olympic-colored balloons can and should rise and form the Olympic rings in the azure sky. At the same time, there was another little voice in our head that it's also okay for us to slightly downgrade our respect for directors, renowned or not, that strew this kind of filmic excrement over our collective sidewalk. These artists are kinda sucking CCP cock, aren't they? Okay, we know this ain't Cannes, and that it might be considered an honor by some to be allowed to make promotional films for the Olympic Games. But seriously, is banality the new language of ideology? Please, show us more people striking on drums and practicing tai-chi in the park. And throw in some cute little Chinese kids while you're at it. Sorry, < /end_rant_here >. We'll start taking our meds again, we promise. more ›

• Japanese investigators have found 'no abnormality' at the dumpling factory in Hebei Province at the centre of a food safety scare in Japan after hundreds of people suffered from pesticide poisoning from eating the dumplings. Traces of pesticide were found on the outside of the dumplings and not in the fillings, leading investigators to point to "deliberate poisoning, rather than accidental contamination". This idea, however, has been rejected by Chinese experts.
• The world's most powerful music labels — Universal Music, Sony BMG (HK) and Warner Music (HK) — have taken Baidu to court in Beijing for not removing links they say infringe on their copyrights. In a related ruling in December, the three firms lost their case against Sohu and Sogou. Meanwhile, Google is preparing to crack China open in the digital music arena. It is in talks with Universal to offer music downloads here. EMI and Sony BMG may join the deal.
• A statement from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry has clarified that the controversial new rules requiring online-video companies to be state-controlled don't apply to already-established Web sites, offering hope to privately-owned video startups such as Youku and Tudou which have raised tens of millions of dollars from venture capitalists.

The Times of India: China is India's largest trade ally more ›

It is no secret by now. China executes more people than the rest of the world put together (yes, even more than the Islamic world). In fact, Amnesty International says China carries out about 80 percent of the world's total capital punishments, if not more (1,770 people in 2005). The recent UN vote for a moratorium on executions saw a fractious two-day debate between the anti-execution camp led by Italy and the pro-execution camp led by Singapore, which has the ignominious honour of having the highest number of executions per capita in the world (coming from there, we are ashamed). The result of the vote: 104 for, 54 against and 29 abstentions. Opponents of the moratorium included the United States, China and Iran (one rarely finds these three countries in the same camp). more ›

Southeast Asian pact exposes rifts [NY Times] Southeast Asian leaders signed a charter here today that was drafted as a watershed document to bind the region together as a European-style economic community but has instead exposed the sharp divisions over Myanmar and other issues among the signatories.Malaysia busts DVD lab in its biggest raid in 2007 [Reuters] Malaysia has raided a laboratory capable of churning out $52 million worth of pirated DVDs a year in... more ›

We've been somewhat faithful readers of Foreign Policy for awhile and noticed that they had a couple of articles that either mention or focus on China in their recent issue. Jeff Chang has written an article called It's a Hip-Hop World where he talks about how globalized hip hop has become, and, in this context, mentions Shanghai. More worrisome than a bunch of seventeen-year-olds in baggy pants is information we found in the article on... more ›

Last weekend, we told you that Yahoo! is now apologizing for not telling the full truth to Congress at the February 2006 hearing where Yahoo! was taken to task for its role in the conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. Now both Republicans and Democrats have launched scathing attacks on Yahoo. San Mateo Democrat Tom Lantos has called Yahoo "moral pygmies", and New Jersey Republican Chris Smith compared Yahoo’s cooperation with the Chinese government to companies that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II. more ›

Alibaba.com, the Chinese e-commerce site, will go public in Hong Kong next week in one of the hottest technology initial public offerings since Google. more ›

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is bringing a clear message to China: Israel will not allow Iran to get the atom bomb. Israel is concerned that China and Russia, which are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have opposed calls by the United States for tougher sanctions on Iran. more ›

Georgia Popplewell of Global Voices Online has offered a great summary of reactions from the international blogosphere to Friday's announcement that former US vice president Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. more ›

Calling all Shanghai entrepreneurs! Come meet new faces and get to know other like-minded individuals at this week's NextStep event which features Tony Mustafa of Essential Finance. All are welcome, no membership required, and no cover charge.


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