And here it is -- the Al-Jazeera documentary that is said to have pissed China off so much that it refused to extend press credentials for its China correspondent Melissa Chan (even though she took no part in its production), effectively forcing the news network to shut down its Beijing bureau. The documentary includes some eye-opening footage from what Al-Jazeera says is a "laogai" reeducation labour camp. more ›

Apple's labour practices have been under the spotlight a lot this year since a monologue by Mike Daisey published by the podcast This American Life gained widespread interest and led to international protests against the manufacturer of the iPhone and iPad. The monologue was eventually retracted after This American Life found Daisey to have fabricated numerous details in his report, thanks to the investigative work of Rob Schmitz, China correspondent of Marketplace. more ›

Chinese dairy giant Mengniu hasn't just been poisoning our kids with melamine milk, they've also been treating their own interns like coolies. 70 vocational students from Jiangsu on an internship with the company's plant in Ma'anshan, Anhui, say they've been made to do nothing but manual labour, working up to 14 hours each day, lifting 10,000 boxes, each weighing 2.5kg. more ›

It looks like Michelle Bachmann isn't the only person who thinks America should be more like China. Former president of the Service Employees International Union Andy Stern thinks so too. In a recent op-ed on the Wall Street Journal, he waxes lyrical over China's "superior economic model" which he witnessed first-hand during a recent trip here. Stern argues that the ability to plan -- something he thinks America has lost -- is what makes China tick: more ›

Roughly 1,000 factory workers left their work stations and blocked a highway this week to protest extreme working conditions at their factory which produces parts for Apple and IBM in Shenzhen. The protest is the latest in a growing series of labor disputes in China, highlighting a need for truly independent trade unions amid worker fears over the future of China's economy. more ›

This report from the Russian town of Navashino in the Nizhny Novgorod region offers a fascinating glimpse at how cheap Chinese labour is changing the face of its neighbours. From Russia Today:

As Russia's economy changes, many locals are coming to terms with the need for thousands of unskilled, foreign workers. Business owners say foreign workers often work long hours and for little money.

‘From Camilla French and Judy Brettschneider of Current TV:

Gathering Dust’ is a collection of fleeting portraits of migrants in Beijing. It visits a cleaner, a migrant school teacher, street vendors, sex workers and migrant children. These migrants come from poor rural areas, and when in Beijing, live at the fringes of urban society. Yet they perform many of the menial jobs without which, Beijing’s and China’s astonishing development would not be possible. We wanted to capture these stories on film and spent 3 weeks in Beijing shooting the project. It wasn’t always easy, as migration is a sensitive subject. We found many closed doors, especially with the Olympics only one year away. But in the end, we wanted to focus on personal stories of migrating to Beijing from different parts of China.” Official statistics place the number of internal migrants over 130 million: 10% of China’s entire population. Today, they make up more than 40% of the urban workforce, and being largely unskilled labourers, and perform menial tasks such as rubbish collection and construction. Despite their large numbers, internal migrants are strongly disenfranchised compared to urban residents. China’s household registration system (hukou) ties government services to native place and occupation. Poor migrants are prevented from accessing social services in urban areas, such as subsidized housing, free education and pensions. Living conditions are often cramped, and diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis spread easily. In 2006, 80% of new HIV cases reported in Beijing were migrant workers. Children inherit the hukou from their parents, and without government education, they have little chance on improving their social status. Annual school fees in Beijing exceed the income of some construction workers. Roughly half of migrant children therefore cannot attend school, and nearly 10% are forced to drop out. There are cheaper ‘migrant schools’. But teaching is often sub-standard, and diplomas are largely unrecognized by state education authorities.

Daily allowance on long-haul flights: NZ$55 (RMB310) more ›