"The BBC Chinese Service has made its final radio broadcast in Mandarin after nearly 70 years. Shortwave programming in Mandarin is a casualty of spending cuts announced by the BBC World Service in January. From now on, Mandarin-speakers will be served only by the BBC's Chinese-language websites; a weekly radio broadcast in Cantonese will continue. BBC managers say they have had to make tough choices because of a 16% cut in UK government funding. BBC World Service Mandarin programming began back in 1941, pre-dating by eight years the proclamation of the People's Republic of China." [BBC] more ›

Go here to listen to Terry Gross' interview with Beijing-based (and formerly Shanghai-based) writer James Fallows, The Atlantic's "man in China." Fallows discusses a variety of topics, including China's extensive investment in the United States (see his Atlantic story on the topic here), his new book of China essays (excerpt on Danwei), internet censorship and his recently deceased father. Around the 24-minute mark, Fallows makes some interesting statements about how he thinks Chinese people would have voted in the recent U.S. election — we're curious how his observations compare to what Shanghaiist readers saw and heard leading up to November 4. more ›

It’s shaping up to be a bad week for the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (the catchily acronymed SARFT) – and it's still only Wednesday. Recent events surrounding bans of video sharing site Tudou and then actress Tang Wei (汤唯) seem to suggest that SARFT is slipping into farce. more ›

By Kenneth Tan and David Feng more ›

Sohu, that bastion of hard-hitting news on the Chinese internet, serves up a video of pretty female reporters at the NPC [h/t CDT]: 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.

A reminder that Shanghai's airwaves weren't always the preserve of Love Radio's soul-negating pop or bizarre phone-ins dedicated to giving out street directions, courtesy of the Radio Heritage Foundation. Around 40 stations operated out of the city in 1940, though this dropped during the course of the Japanese occupation to less than ten by 1945. The website has put together a list of the stations that broadcast during the period, and is calling for anyone who has any related pictures, stories or memorabilia from the period to get in touch. It also has an excerpt from a 1940 Time article profiling Carroll Duard Alcott, an American radioman based in Shanghai who made his namer needling the occupiers. There's another snippet on him here, also by Time. more ›

Huang Qingnan (黃慶南), the activist from the Shenzhen Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre who was brutally hacked on his back, waist and leg is finally well enough to give an interview. Erm, well, not really. From this video, it appears he was splashed with acid too? We can't quite tell. Urgh. Anyhow, the muscles on his left calf have all been destroyed, which means he will have to learn how to keep his balance with his remaining muscles. The Dagongzhe centre was forced to close for a while after the attack, but now they've sprung back into action with fund-raising activities which you will see in the second half of the clip. Let's see how the mafia react to that. more ›

A new directive by the Chinese censorship board, also known as the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has banned producers of erotic movies, including their directors and leading actors, from participation in domestic film awards. Violators may be banned up to five years from the movie industry and recalcitrant studios may even have their licenses revoked. Xinhua quotes a report by the Beijing News that details exactly what kind of content SARFT frowns upon:

The SARFT asked nationwide studios not to produce films with footage of hardcore activities, rape, whoring, obscene sex exposing human genitals, or sex freaks, the newspaper said. Vulgar conversations, nasty songs and sound effects with sexual connotation were also restricted.

• SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others.
• Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list.
• Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island.

What would you do if you paid a shitload of money to study at some college, thinking it would legit and all, only to be told that your diploma would not be recognised after all? We don't know about you, but we would definitely riot. Well, that's what some civilian students at the Hefei PLA Artillery Academy did a few days back. And it turned out to be a very bloody incident. Iron doors were... more ›

More than a dozen prominent Singapore celebrities have come out in support of a new parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377A in the city-state's Penal Code which outlaws “acts of gross indecency” between men by appearing in a Youtube video uploaded recently. more ›

Starbucks Corporation, the world’s biggest coffee shop chain, recalled 250,000 children’s plastic cups made in China after receiving reports of the cups breaking and posing a choking hazard. more ›

The Shanghaiist Weather Center is 100 percent sure the answer will be yes (although is Shanghai Circuit really in Shanghai?). It's dry now in the French Concession, but the dark clouds above suggest it won't stay that way for long. Here's the latest weather update from the official Formula 1 website: Thus far Sunday has been dry with a little wind, but no sign of the edge of Typhoon Krosa, which is sweeping through the... more ›

Burma's military junta has been showing its true colors this week, firing automatic weapons at peaceful demonstrators and raiding monasteries to beat and kill Buddhist monks. But the junta's criminal disdain for human rights has also cast a harsh light on China, the principal commercial partner, strategic ally, and diplomatic protector of the junta. more ›

Rumour has it that Shanghai Media Group, the city's largest TV conglomerate which operates 20 television and radio channels, has plans to start a new 24-hour English language news channel. Rejoice all ye who don't have (or can't afford) satellite at home (that includes us)! Well apparently this has been in the works for a year now, and while SMG hasn't jumped pass the final regulatory hurdle, it has already started hiring "hiring English-speaking presenters, editors and reporters, including foreigners, for the new service" (now just where does one send in his CV?). more ›

Shanghaiist usually waits until Friday to update you on this weekend's live shows, but this week we decided to actually get something in a timely manner (actually we are going to Beijing for the Pop Festival so will be partying way too hard to write this later). Yuyintang, those stalwart music promoters, are back with a show tonight (Thursday) at the Zendai Moma out in Pudong. If this morning's weather holds out it should be a great night to make the schlep out to the boonies and catch Norwegian, brit-popish band, Flare and Shanghai based Boys Climbing Ropes. We have also heard from various sources that 2nd Hand Rose will be in town playing at some sort of art function tonight. more ›

Lost Laowai brings our attention to the following soundbyte of a conversation between an Air China pilot and the control tower of the JFK Airport in New York. In it, the pilot fails to understand anything that the traffic controller was saying and his English was so garbled that he might as well have been speaking in Esperanto -- a language that is deemed so important that China Radio International's website has a version in it! more ›

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DUE TO ITS SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC NATURE, THE PHOTO ASSOCIATED WITH THIS STORY APPEARS AFTER THE JUMP. more ›

See anything newsworthy? Leave us a tip on the Shanghaiist Contribute Page! more ›

A few days ago, we linked to a BoingBoing post entitled "Buddha Machine: spiritual, generative transistor radio." Well, Shanghai blogger Swiss James, who is, naturally, "an Englishman born in the year of the Horse," recently bought six of these plastic chanting contraptions and videotaped them for us all to see and hear (he used his close proximity to Jing'An Temple as an excuse). more ›

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. more ›

That's what some people are saying. According to China Radio International, the Shanghai Morning Post reported earlier this week that Spider-Man 3, expected to be one of the summer's biggest blockbuster movies, got the seal of approval from China's censors and will "open in theaters on the Chinese mainland on May 1, even though it won't be released in the United States until May 4." Pacific Epoch also reports this, citing the Legal Evening News as its source. They say the movie will appear "in theaters in Beijing on May 1." If true, moviegoers in China will be the first in the world (aside from those at the Tokyo world premiere on April 16) to witness "a strange black entity from another world bond with Peter Parker and cause inner turmoil as he contends with new villains, temptations, and revenge." more ›

New Scientist recently reported on a record-breaking feat of a particular bird-of-prey population near Beijing. This news isn't something to celebrate, rather something quite worrisome. Researchers discovered that kestrels had record-breaking amounts of a PDBE chemical known as Deca in their tissues. more ›

The Washington Post reports that the former next president of the United States, Al Gore, is going to put on some massive live shows to help persuade the world to take global warming and climate change seriously:

At the news conference Thursday announcing this summer's ambitious "Live Earth" concerts -- designed as an exercise in "mass persuasion" about threats of global warming -- Al Gore described his vision: a 24-hour musical extravaganza across seven continents, featuring as many as 150 of the world's top recording artists, introduced by an army of "celebrities and thought leaders" (think: Cameron Diaz and Richard Branson), playing before a total live audience of a million people, and reaching 2 billion more via television, radio and the Internet on July 7.

The foreign cities hosting the stadium-size concerts will be Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, Rio and Kyoto, Japan.

From February until August, Chinese TV "golden hours" (5-8pm) programming is going to go on moral diet, shedding excess and unwanted sex, violence, and moral degradation. This we learned from a Chinese report as well as Asia Times Online, where they quoted official Wang Weiping on the matter:

"The country's satellite TV stations should only screen ethically inspiring TV series during prime time," Shanghai Daily quoted Wang Weiping, an official from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

In an attempt to woo audiences many broadcasters have allowed reality TV shows, crime series, featuring heavy dose of violence, as well as shows with explicit sex scenes to feature prominently on Chinese television.

A week ago, we told you about The Departed's bad odds for finding its way into Chinese theaters — censors, reportedly, didn't like a plotline that had Chinese government officials (or people working for government officials) trying to purchase advanced military computer hardware. Well, now we learn that "[d]istributors for Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated crime thriller The Departed are negotiating with Chinese censors to edit out some of the politically sensitive scenes." But wait, SARFT is saying its primary problem with the movie is violence: more ›