China urges UN support for Olympic Truce in 2008 [Bangkok Post] China asked the UN General Assembly Wednesday to adopt a resolution supporting the Olympic Truce, a time-honoured practice from ancient Greece to respect the sportive events that will take place in Beijing next year.French foreign minister in China with sensitive issues on agenda [AFP] France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner held talks with China's leaders Wednesday to pave the way for President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit......

From Reuters: Chinese police have banned a conference involving haemophiliac activists and are believed to be holding one of the main organisers for questioning, a source close to the organisers said on Saturday. The conference, "Blood safety, AIDS and Human Rights", was organised by the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education and was to take place in Beijing on Saturday, the source said. The activist involved is the prominent AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, who is......

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for? Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez. Chicagoist talked about the passion as they bid adieu to Bell's Beer,......

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree. Londonist answers the questions "How much......

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. Bostonist has its first birthday party and investigates how to attach more gambling dollars to the Red Sox. Benjamin Franklin is celebrated and Johnny Damon is not. Image by Ethan Bagley......

Our buddies at SFist have informed us that San Francisco and Shanghai are "sister cities," and to celebrate this fact, SF mayor Gavin Newsom has graced our fair city with his presence. We wonder if he realizes that almost every city in the world is sisters with Shanghai: Dunedin, Dubai, Cork, Hamburg, Chicago, Liverpool, Windhoek ... and that's just from the first page of Google results. What ever happened to the one-child policy? Here's what......

Shanghaiist staff (all six officials ones plus numerous groupies) are unabashed devotees of the Super Voice Girls, so imagine our pleasure when we found out that Li Yuchun, the androgynous wonder from Sichuan and final winner of the contest that sent tingles and shivers down the spine of people throughout China, became a cover girl. Sort of -- she made the cover of a Special Issue of TIME magazine called "Asia's Heroes". What's more interesting......