We'll admit it -- this whole Confucius Peace Prize business has got us nothing but confused. You may remember that the Ministry of Culture disbanded the original organisers of the award and anointed a group of professors from Tsinghua University, Peking University and Beijing Normal University to put together the "new“ award. It appears now that the awarding of the prize to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin is the handiwork of the old guard and has absolutely nothing to do with the new group blessed by the ministry! more ›

It would have been so much easier if China had put a full stop to the sordid affair of the Confucius Peace Prize, but nope, authorities have decided to charge ahead with their public relations trainwreck. Apparently, a rival group calling themselves the "Confucius Prize for World Peace" quietly emerged on September 21, the International Day of Peace -- that's one whole week before we found out the original organisers had been disbanded. more ›

The Ministry of Culture has removed the Confucius Peace Prize away from its erstwhile organisers, the China Native Art Association's Traditional Culture Protection Bureau, and ordered for it to be shut down, saying it had never been given official permission to run the awards. more ›

As part of its two-year-long effort scouring China's music sites for "poor taste and vulgar content," the Chinese Ministry of Culture has sent out its latest pop music blacklist . In pictures above are the artists our dear leaders are now protecting us against. more ›

Despite having an audience here in China that makes up half of its international player base, Blizzard Inc. has had little luck getting its popular expansion of the World of Warcraft franchise onto Chinese shores... until now! That's right, Chinese WoW players, you can now FINALLY play the Wrath of the Lich King expansion - almost two years after it first came out everywhere else. more ›

It seems that according to the Ministry of Culture, we internet people just can't be regulated enough. At China's Seventh International Internet Culture Exposition, officials spoke of the need for both an online ratings system (much like there is for movies) and a "real-name system." Forcing netizens to register with the government before going online has been debated before, and the MoC still didn't explain this time around how it expects to accomplish that kind of task. more ›

According to a statement released by Netease earlier today, the General Administration of Press and Publication has suspended government approval for their operating World of Warcraft. As if WoW players didn't have enough problems earlier this year, the GAPP cited “gross violations of regulations” as the reason behind suspending NetEase’s operating rights to the massively popular online game. more ›

Woah, we're not sure how it even plans to do this, but China's Ministry of Culture is apparently setting new rules to vet music sold online. Music sites, including Google and Baidu's mp3 divisions, will now be forced to seek approval from censors for all foreign songs they distribute. Besides having to provide written lyrics for each song, translated into Chinese, they'll also need to show documents proving they aren't infringing on copyrights. Google's free mp3 download service at least has the blessings of record companies so perhaps it won't be too hard for it to sail these waters, but we wonder if this will become the storm that sinks Baidu. Source: Wall Street Journal more ›

China’s online gangster/mafia games are now officially sleepin’ with the fishes. According to Xinhua, the Ministry of Culture banned all websites and servers running, publishing, or offering links to online games involving gang-related subject matter and warned that violators of the ban will face an unspecified but "severe punishment." more ›

We told you the concerts were off. Now we know why (the band's version of why, at least): The boys from Manchester got Björked, and Liam didn't even get to touch his tambourine. According to a statement released by Oasis, China's Ministry of Culture deemed the band "unsuitable" for Chinese audiences (an no, not because of Heathen Chemistry). So why then? "Noel Gallagher appeared at a Free Tibet Benefit Concert on Randall's Island in New York in 1997." more ›

From the New York Times: more ›

We know he's meant to be quite a bit more brilliant in concert than we saw the other night, but it seems as though a few things conspired to make Harry Connick's Shanghai show this past Sunday less great than it really should have been. For one, the role that the rest of the band played was way too small — it seems that we heard more from Bjork's brass section the week before! And when they were playing, you could barely hear them as the piano and voice were so much higher in the mix and the horns got drowned out. We fell asleep at the beginning of the show, with all the solo piano and mellow vocals happening. Then it was the same 2 or 3 players taking horn solos all night, and there was only one trumpet solo in the entire show! It makes you wonder what the heck was going on for this to happen, after all the hype about this great big band. more ›