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Looking ever so epic and Gandhi-esque, The Lady traces the story of Nobel Peace Prize (aka Hideous Norwegian Insult to Chinese Sovereignty Prize) winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and her struggle to bring democracy to Myanmar in the face of the country's military junta. more ›

Myanmar has blacklisted Michelle Yeoh and kicked her out of the country over her portrayal of Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming film. The film is "The Lady" directed by Luc Besson ("The Fifth Element") and is about the Nobel Peace Prize winner, her house arrest and marriage. She may also be a knife-wielding super-heroine. more ›

• Corporations, nonprofits and government alike are throwing down major yuan to prevent the imminent extinction of 4,000-year old Nushu, a Hunan dialect that may have inadvertently started its own feminist movement. [Guardian]
• So, it seems the Chinese criminals behind that whole Google hacking business found their way into the system through a loophole Google deliberately wrote into the Gmail code in order to facilitate the US spying on its own citizens. [CNN]
• Six of eleven mainland Chinese companies listed on Singapore's stock exchange have defaulted on their bonds. The most notable offender? A Heilongjiang operation that produces bull semen and cow embryos. [Business Insider]

• Black is White, White is Black [Asia Sentinel] "“Even now I still cannot calm down. Only rage, rage and rage. Only extreme (expletive) rage! I can never imagine how a government, a great nation, which has more or less squeezed itself in on the international stage, and which has earned a bit of status in the international community, can be so shameless, knavish, lawless, unable to tell right from wrong, black from white, turning a victim into an accused, twisting facts and twisting truths - how can such a nation and motherland be so thick-skinned as to tell Hong Kong people to be patriotic?"
• China unveils high-speed railways [BBC] "China has announced plans to build 42 new high-speed railway lines over the next three years. In a breakthrough, China has developed trains that can run on both high-speed and normal lines, said railway official Zhang Shuguang. A 500km/h train will be tested by the end of next year, Mr Zhang said. China will have added 13,000km of high-speed lines by 2012, shortening journey times considerably for the expected seven billion annual passengers."
• Thomas Friedman Demands Communist Revolution [Gawker] "Flat-earther Times columnist Thomas Friedman thinks we should probably "outsource" our form of government to China, where they have streamlined the whole process by eliminating the bit where idiots "vote." No, seriously, he is outright saying that the autocratic one-party Chinese government is superior to our own. There is no equivocation in this line: "There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today." And why are things better in China? Because the current "reasonably enlightened group of people" in charge of China, at the moment, can just impose "politically difficult but critically important policies" like raising gas prices to encourage clean power investment and so on."
• China tip-off 'sparked' fighting [Al Jazeera] "A senior Myanmar official has said that last month's clashes in the northeast of the country were sparked after a Beijing tipped them off about the location of an illegal arms factory. Up to 30,000 people fled across the border from Kokang into northern China during the fighting which followed the raid on the arms factory in the mainly ethnic Chinese region."

• Taiwan to Allow Dalai Lama Visit [NY Times] "The president of Taiwan said Thursday that he would allow the Dalai Lama to visit the island next week, a move likely to infuriate China and jeopardize rapidly improving relations between Taipei and Beijing. The Tibetan spiritual leader is expected to arrive Monday for a six-day tour of southern Taiwan, which was ravaged by a typhoon three weeks ago that left at least 650 dead."
• Thousands of Myanmar refugees flowing into Yunnan [Go Kunming] "An attempt by Myanmar's ruling military junta to bring rebel ethnic fighters under its control has led to escalating tensions, reports of fighting and a looming specter of war, with thousands of refugees fleeing into southwestern Yunnan, according to a Reuters report. China- and Thailand-based media outlets have reported that on August 8 the Myanmar army sent hundreds of troops to the region of Kokang in the country's northeastern Shan State. Kokong, which has held to a 20-year ceasefire with the Myanmar government in Yangon, is home to many ethnic Chinese as well as other ethnic groups."
• Conrad Black: Much ado about China [National Post] "Overblown announcements heralding the supposed coming of the Age of China have become a staple of journalistic futurism in recent years. When Maclean's magazine banners across the top of its cover "When China Rules the World," as it did last month -- and it is not a Monty Python send-up of swarms of incomprehensible people in Mao suits -- I know it is time to raise a peep of dissent."

Perhaps one of the loudest signals of uneasiness towards their Eastern neighbor in recent months, the Indian national government has decided to cancel plans to rebuild their part of the Stilwell Road. The road, a former World War II supply route built under US General "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell, used to connect Kunming to the city of Ledo, with much of it going through what is now Myanmar. The Chinese portion of the road was finished years ago. The ruling junta in Myanmar has supported rebuilding Stilwell Road, but progress has been slow. India was the last of the three countries to agree to start construction. Source: Go Kunming more ›

"China, with a large economic size, would not face recession after the Olympic Games, the World Bank's new chief economist Justin Yifu Lin said on Sunday." more ›