This is just such a classic you'll have to read the entire AP story for yourself:A news story describing a successful launch of China's long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground. The country's official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down. A......

And those reports were published by China's state-run media. On November 3, Xinhua listed He Kexin as being 13, referring to her as "this little girl" (an apt description for any of China's diminutive gold medalists). A May 23 story in China Daily listed He as being 14. Gymnasts must be 16 the year of the Olympics to be eligible to compete. He's birthday is officially listed as January 1, 1992, a rather eye-opening date......

Despite getting docked 10 points by Xinhua (the state-run news agency is reporting a score of 79-68), the U.S. Olympic basketball team cruised past Russia in the team's first defensive struggle leading up to the Beijing Games. Kobe Bryant led the U.S. with 19 points, much to the delight of the crowd at Qizhong Tennis Center in Pudong. The AP reports: "The sellout crowd of 14,523 at this arena built for tennis clearly favored the......

Or a genuine case of twins? You decide... From Xinhua via Hecaitou and ZonaEuropa Previously on Shanghaiist The case of the First Lady's mysterious extra legs......

Local officials are still trying to strike the proper balance between transparency and the traditional Chinese methods of information dissemination (or lack thereof) which we have all become so familiar with — namely, "monitoring," "controlling" and "blocking." If the government had been open about the details of the "unusual death" of the girl in Weng'an on June 22nd, could it have prevented the destructive mass protests nearly a week later? That is the question......

Urumqi police have raided an apartment which housed 15 ethnic Uyghurs and alleged Islamic terrorists shouting "sacrifice for Allah". A spokesman said they tried to break out when police used tear gas to flush them out, wielding knives and injuring one policeman. Subsequently, police shot dead five, injured another two (which were sent to the hospital) and captured the remaining nine. A Xinhua report says the suspects have confessed that they've been planning for a......

After Xinhua reported that county officials in Weng’an—including its Communist Party secretary, Wang Qin, and head of the county government, Wang Haiping—were fired on Friday following the June 28 riots, Western media has hailed Weng’an as a turning point for China. Both WSJ and TIME remark that Xinhua’s handling of the Weng’an incident is remarkable in itself; not only did state media report the riots almost immediately, but quickly produced "unusually long investigative stories." Adding......

Are Beijing's anti-pollution efforts paying off? Just yesterday Xinhua published a highly optimistic article on conditions in Beijing 50 days before the Olympics. According to Xinhua, Beijing's skies are peachy-keen: The number of "blue sky" days was 12 more than the same period last year, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. It was a clear sign that years of anti-pollution efforts by the Olympic host city continue to pay off, said Du Shaozhong,......

Three people were killed and another two injured when two 600 tonne gantry cranes collapsed in a shipbuilding site in Pudong shortly after midnight last Friday.Australia has named a new consul-general for Shanghai, Mr Tom Connor, who will succeed outgoing Ms [Susan] Dietz- Henderson in July.Sharon Stone, who served on the jury of the 2007 Shanghai International Film Festival, has been banned for life from the SIFF, along with all her movies.Xinhua News Agency has......

Anti-CNN.com, a website set up to protest the Western media's "distortion" of recent events in Tibet, has been hacked according to The Dark Visitor. There's a clue in the name as to what anti-CNN.com is all about but, in case you haven't heard of it, here's how they define themselves:This website is estabished to expose the lies and distortions in the western media. The site is maintained by volunteers, who are not associated with any......