Zachary Franklin of DeluxZilla shakes his finger at Shanghaiist for doing "everything short of link every time [Adam] Minter has to hit the bathroom" and springs to the defense of the US pavilion. more ›

American taxpayers, listen up! Your presence at the world's biggest World Expo is costing you $61 million -- that's over four times the cost of Shanghai's new nightlife monstrosity named after your current president. more ›

When we first read that New York Times article about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support of the USA Pavilion effort here in Shanghai, something didn't sit quite right with us. It's not that the facts didn't seem correct or anything - but almost no mention was made about why Clinton stepped in to raise money in the first place. Wasn't there already a group of people meant to do that? more ›

So despite the U.S. promising to be at Expo 2010 and Hillary Clinton allegedly confirming its participation, Shanghai World Expo organizers still haven't actually received the letter of confirmation, according to Xinhua. It's only when this letter gets into the Shanghai World Expo's very eager hands that a country's pavilion is truly confirmed, apparently a completely different matter than whether someone has been appointed as Commission General of the pavilion. So why did the U.S. Secretary of State publicly appoint Jose Villarreal to his Commission General position if nobody had yet to actually apply with the Shanghai organizers? It's all too confusing for us so we'll just direct you to the much more capable hands of Shanghai Scrap. more ›

A flurry of recent activity regarding the US Pavilion at next year's Expo has resulted in US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirming the United States' participation in the Expo after the USA Pavilion organizers announced PepsiCo signing on in a US$5 million deal. more ›

• China cracks down on foreign journalists [FT.com Video] "Foreign journalists trying to conduct interviews in the Sichuan earthquake zone in western China are being attacked and detained as Beijing ratchets up security in preparation for the first anniversary of the devastating quake on May 12. Jamil Anderlini, FT Beijing correspondent, traveled to Sichuan and was the target of such attacks. He reports on how officials used violence and threats to suppress his coverage."
• From gold farmers to kings: online gaming in china [US China Today] "Apparently the virtual world has not been hit by the financial crisis. In early April, Changyou, the online gaming division of the popular Chinese portal site Sohu.com, had its initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange. The stock jumped 25% by the day’s end, raising over US$128 million in company proceeds."
• Love, lust and time to party as hotel 'captives' scent freedom [SCMP] "Dozens of people partied in the lobby of the quarantined Metropark Hotel in Wan Chai last night to celebrate their impending release today, as guests told tales of love, lust and laughter from the week-long internment. Sheets that had covered the windows of the locked-down hotel for days were ripped down amid the festivities, revealing smiling guests raising glasses of wine, beer and other liquor and kissing one another."

So the Shanghai World Expo organizers have set another date for when they will finally say “No way, no how, you're too late to build your pavilion now”: June 30. more ›

The battle to bring the U.S. pavilion to the World Expo in Shanghai seems to just get more complicated as the days count down. According to China Daily, a Chinese-American oil industry executive called James I.C. Chiang is now planning his own vision of what the pavilion should look like: more ›

• Mandarin Chinese profanity [Wikipedia] "While many offensive words and expletives involve insulting someone's mother, it is also common to show contempt by scorning another person's ancestors. Other Mandarin insults accuse people of not being human. Unlike English, Mandarin words for excrement or feces are less commonly used in slang and insults. Also, there are few parallels to English's blasphemous phrases, such as 'God damn it'."
• NKorea premier ends China visit [AFP] North Korean Premier Kim Yong-Il Saturday wrapped up his first visit to China, which came two weeks before Pyongyang's planned launch of a satellite, the Xinhua news agency reported. Kim's visit, which began Tuesday, was his first since taking office in 2007 and was officially to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
• Earthquake Pandas Go Home (with video!) [BBC] "Eight young pandas have returned to their native Sichuan province, after being relocated to Beijing, following last year's earthquake. Large crowds turned out to visit the pandas on their last weekend in Beijing before they are flown back to Sichuan province. The pandas will have a new home in Sichuan province with indoor air conditioning and outdoor swimming pools."