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• Taobao Now: My Fair Lady's Pretty Dresses
• Henan man skins parents alive in dispute over money
• Employment opportunities bring migrant workers back home
• Presented By:
• Human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang banned from Weibo
• Watch: Diaoyu Islands and all Japan's territorial disputes explained
• Hungry Lung’s Kitchen: True Comfort Food
• Answer phone at Chinese Ministry denies everything
• A Map Of The Political Relationships Of China’s State Oil Companies
• Dish of the Day: Seafood congee @ Chaoshan Sha Guo
• Could smartphones help clear China’s congested roads?
• Watch: Peking Opera adaptation of Les Misérables
• Infographic: Jiepang sums up all 2012's check-ins
• Watch: 3 year old finds out Jay Chou is her biological father, curses mother!
• Former Chinese State TV Broadcaster Sen Luo Arrested For Possessing “Extreme Porn”
• Porn Projected On Big Screen In Public Square In Guangdong Province
• Apple And Facebook Report Being Hacked, Maybe (Or Maybe Not) By The Chinese
• Lifetime Suspensions, Major Team Penalties For Those Involved In Chinese Soccer Match-Fixing
• US Security Firm Claims Shadowy Chinese Hacking Organization Has “Compromised” 141 Companies Since 2006
• Watch A Cop Almost Do Something About This Fight

Taobao Now: My Fair Lady's Pretty Dresses Posted: 20 Feb 2013 08:43 PM PST Date: Feb 21st 2013 12:29p.m. Contributed by: mengsta

Henan man skins parents alive in dispute over money Posted: 20 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST A Henan man peeled his parents flesh off in a dispute over money, Jiangsu Television reported Wednesday. [ more › ]

Employment opportunities bring migrant workers back home Posted: 20 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST Many migrant workers are opting to stay home at the conclusion of the Spring Festival this year rather than making the journey back south or east. [ more › ]

Presented By: Posted: 20 Feb 2013 07:00 PM PST

Human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang banned from Weibo Posted: 20 Feb 2013 06:00 PM PST Human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang has been banned from using Weibo and other mainland microblogging platforms, after he used them to criticise former security chief Zhou Yongkang. His accounts on Sina, Tencent and Sohu were all suspended on February 8. Pu accused Zhou of human rights violations, saying that he had "wrecked a country, ruined the people". [ more › ]

Watch: Diaoyu Islands and all Japan's territorial disputes explained Posted: 20 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST If anyone is still unclear on the Diaoyu Islands dispute, listen to the soothing voice of The Economist slowly explain the situation and many other territorial disputes concerning Japan, China, and the South China Sea (there are quite a few). [ more › ]

Hungry Lung’s Kitchen: True Comfort Food Posted: 20 Feb 2013 04:57 PM PST Date: Feb 20th 2013 4:58p.m. Contributed by: geofferson

Answer phone at Chinese Ministry denies everything Posted: 20 Feb 2013 05:13 PM PST By QUANPAN FOUREN & BU SHIWO Technology Correspondents The enhanced tech (above) also denies ever receiving reporters' questions in the first place SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) – A new answering-service from the Chinese government has already issued a series of firm denials, sources confirmed yesterday. Reporters who dial the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Hacking are now greeted with an electronic message, asking them to press a specified button to direct their inquiry. "Press One if your call concerns 'purchase of organs harvested from executed criminals,' Two for 'mysterious deaths linked to Chinese-owned tech firm abroad,' Three for 'kid got crushed by official,' Four for 'inexplicably banned from Twitter…" the 47-minute message begins. The pre-recorded list, described as "fairly comprehensive," offers some 400 different options, including number 72 – "just had servers compromised by hackers located in Chinese military academy or otherwise." Despite the wide variety of queries offered, though, users say the machine's response is exactly the same every time. "China is a country under rule of law and the government does not support, nor sponsor, any kind of activity that might be considered newsworthy," the automated response patiently intones. "Logically, to suggest otherwise is neither professional, nor consistent with the facts." Foreign media agree that the new service is both "useful" and "saves time." "We understand that bad things do often happen to good people," the automated message concludes sympathetically. "So for further information, please press One to be directed to the US Embassy."  Follow this and all other China news with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

A Map Of The Political Relationships Of China’s State Oil Companies Posted: 20 Feb 2013 01:36 PM PST We noted the growing global reach of China's big three national oil companies earlier this week. It is tempting to see them as a monolithic arm of state policy, and their overseas acquisitions of oil and gas assets as a … Continue reading →

Dish of the Day: Seafood congee @ Chaoshan Sha Guo Posted: 20 Feb 2013 06:30 AM PST The star is seafood congee, a dish combining two things I love most about China; congee and sea creatures fresh from the tank. Choose the one with mud crab, whole shrimp, and dried scallops (230RMB). [ more › ]

Could smartphones help clear China’s congested roads? Posted: 20 Feb 2013 03:58 AM PST Crowd-sourced commuting would cut emissions and stress in Chinese cities, says New Cities Foundation The extraordinary growth of China's cities is well-known. Today, 160 Chinese metropolises have over one million inhabitants and more than half the population lives in urban areas, which are growing at two to three times the rate of Western cities. One sector feeling the weight of this unprecedented demographic shift is transport. In a country where the number of cars grows by more than 10% each year, urban planners and transport authorities need innovative techniques to address road congestion. Though cities such as Beijing already have several radio stations dedicated to providing traffic updates, they did not manage to prevent the two-week long gridlock in 2010, or the slew of Autumn Holiday traffic jams throughout the country in 2012. China needs alternative approaches. A recent study by the New Cities Foundation has particularly interesting implications for urban China. Working with technology company Ericsson and the University of California, Berkeley, we used smartphone apps to connect travellers who take the same daily route to and from work, allowing them to share relevant, useful information with each other. The report, based on a year-long pilot project in San Jose, California, presents an opportunity for transport agencies, local governments and mobile phone app developers around the world to identify new ways to improve the commuter experience. It examined the effects of tools like Waze and Roadify, two innovative smartphone apps that allow drivers and public transit users respectively to share information in real-time. Such apps are based on a passive contribution model – simply by driving with the app open on your phone, you passively contribute traffic and other road data that helps the system provide other commuters with the optimal route to their destination. There are opportunities to supplement this information with more detailed traffic reports, and it is the responsibility of the commuter not to put others at risk and drive responsibly, by entering traffic information while the car is stopped during a traffic jam, for example. Connected commuters, happier commuters A key finding of the project is that encouraging and using crowd-sourced information sharing can be an efficient, cost-effective way to build a community of commuters who themselves provide solutions to the burdens of daily travel. The benefits extend to both individual commuters and organisations working on transportation and mobility. We found that commuters' ability to receive or share real-time information with other travellers effectively reduced commute-related stress and provided a sense of community. Moreover, car drivers connected to other commuters via social apps tended to be happier with their commutes than unconnected drivers. This was because of the timely information they received and the information they shared with others, which gave them a sense of satisfaction at helping fellow commuters. Finally, crowd-sourced data from commuter apps was found to be highly relevant to transport agencies and mobile app developers. Real-time information-sharing can be a useful tool for identifying where commuters are experiencing problems and at what time of day. In turn, this provides feedback on routes that need to be better managed by authorities. There are cultural, demographic and technological reasons why these insights have the potential to improve urban mobility in China. First, the popularity of smartphones among the Chinese urban middle class, and a keen appetite for mobile phone apps, means commuters are likely to engage actively in connected commuting. Crowdsourcing enterprises like Zhubajie, which has four million workers signed up (arguably making it the biggest employer in the world) are already very popular in China. China's enthusiasm for social networking and crowdsourcing suggests its commuters will be receptive to sharing information with others. Second, like commuters in San Jose, Chinese commuters tend to drive alone. As the data analysis of connected commuters in California indicated, drivers valued the ability to share their feelings – and useful information – with fellow commuters. Similarly, the staggering number of lone commuters flooding China's roads each day could benefit from a more enjoyable drive to work enabled by these mobile apps. Cutting Chinese road emissions Finally, at the city level, connected commuting could provide millions of Chinese people with the necessary information to make better commuting choices, with positive environmental, social and economic ramifications. Research shows that people's perception of the efficiency of different kinds of transport influences commuters most when deciding how to travel. For example, an undecided commuter, seeing the warnings of other drivers before leaving the house in the morning, might be encouraged to use public transport instead, or depart at a different time. Even if the commuter ultimately decides to drive to work, he or she may have a more efficient commute thanks to information on alternative routes from other commuters. If this behavior is replicated across even a small percentage of China's urban population, it could have significant impacts on reducing carbon emissions, either by boosting use of public transport or cutting time spent in traffic. These potential environmental impacts will assume increased importance as China explores innovative ways to decrease the pollution being emitted by its 200 million automobiles. In fast-growing Chinese cities like Wuhan and Shenzhen, the rapid rise in car ownership makes it difficult to assess how traffic patterns will change in future. The need to evaluate and react to a fluctuating situation has already elicited a variety of responses from local authorities. Wuhan, for example, has installed traffic lights that react to the flow of traffic to minimise the disruption typically caused by intersections. Similarly, data gathered from smartphone apps could provide more clarity on pain points for drivers – by location, time of day, or day of week, for instance. The authorities could then use this information to develop commuter programmes, adjust regulations to optimise traffic or incentivise commuters to avoid overloaded junctions. As Chinese cities and infrastructure investments grow, the mix of qualitative and quantitative data generated by apps like Waze or Roadify could help authorities address areas that consistently cause stress for commuters and are a source of pollution. The power and potential of connected commuting is evident: both individuals and city authorities can benefit from the information generated by smartphone apps designed for commuters. Although our study was conducted in San Jose, California, the tech-savviness of the Chinese urban population, combined with government efforts to cut both congestion and carbon emissions, make Chinese cities particularly well placed to apply its findings.

Watch: Peking Opera adaptation of Les Misérables Posted: 20 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST If Tom Hooper's adaptation of Les Misérables wasn't your cup of tea, how about a Peking Opera version of Boublil and Schönberg's musical interpretation of Victor Hugo's classic novel. Written by students at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in 2006, it has just appeared online in its entirety for the first time. [ more › ]

Infographic: Jiepang sums up all 2012's check-ins Posted: 20 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST The weirdest check in was at the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. Coffee shops were the most common check in establishment except in Guangzhou where they prefer Canton Cuisine. IKEA Shanghai was the location of most pictures (probably of people sleeping or reading books on furniture that's not actually theirs yet). [ more › ]

Watch: 3 year old finds out Jay Chou is her biological father, curses mother! Posted: 20 Feb 2013 03:00 AM PST This little girl has real gumption! Three year old Xixi is totally outraged at her mother, who jokingly tells her that her biological father is actually Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou. [ more › ]

Former Chinese State TV Broadcaster Sen Luo Arrested For Possessing “Extreme Porn” Posted: 19 Feb 2013 11:43 PM PST We know porn's a no-no in China, but did you know that in its "extreme" form it's also illegal in Britain? One former CCTV presenter does — now that he's facing up to three years in prison. "Sen Luo, 40, had more than 800 videos on his laptop and hard-drives and claimed he needed them to 'research' a Sex and the City-style book," according to The Sun. "But jurors found him guilty of two counts of possessing extreme pornography." This being The Sun, we're treated to paragraphs such as these: Investigating Detective Constable Kim Negus had told the Old Bailey in London that she had to view Luo's videos with the sound turned down to cut out the screams of the women. She said: "These videos were disgusting and distressing. I viewed around 18 of them and had to have the sound down." Tell me more, Constable Kim. "They featured oriental women but it is impossible to say how they came to be used for these images." The Littlehampton Gazette added, not sure why, "The jury was told that some showed women strapped to machines and tortured with electrodes, pins being pushed into their breasts or hot wax poured into their body." Luo will be sentenced next month. So who is he, exactly? According to SCMP: Also known by the name Edward Law, Luo joined CCTV as a presenter on the network's BizChina show in 2003 after a career in corporate finance. His CCTV blog was last updated in July 2003. According to CCTV's website, Luo was born in London and worked for several financial firms including Prudential and Standard Chartered. He was posted to Hong Kong during the Asian financial crisis. He left China for the United Kingdom in 2008 and settled in Dover, Kent. Should've stayed in China, where there's the occasional free public porn show. And now, your supplemental literary reference: David Foster Wallace's "Big Red Son," found in Consider the Lobster: THE AMERICAN ACADEMY of Emergency Medicine confirms it: Each year, between one and two dozen adult US males are admitted to ERs after having castrated themselves. With kitchen tools, usually, sometimes wire cutters. In answer to the obvious question, surviving patients most often report that their sexual urges had become a source of intolerable conflict and anxiety. The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand. It is to the 30+ testosteronically afflicted males whose cases have been documented in the past two years that your correspondents wish to dedicate this article. And to those tormented souls considering autocastration in 1998, we wish to say: "Stop! Stay your hand! Hold off with those kitchen utensils and/or wire cutters!" Because we believe we may have found an alternative. Unhealthy quantities of porn is that alternative. (H/T Alicia)

Porn Projected On Big Screen In Public Square In Guangdong Province Posted: 19 Feb 2013 11:16 PM PST Porn, which is banned but easily downloadable in China, was projected onto a large LED display in Zhongshan, Guangdong province on Saturday, above a KFC in Fuye Square. Playtime unknown. Movie title: purely guessing from the image, Deepthroat Virgins 37. Take it away, The Nanfang: Located in the west of the city, Fuye is one of the city's busiest squares and is close to both a kindergarten and a primary school. Several passers by told Sohu News of their shock and disgust at seeing the footage shown so publicly in broad daylight. Several pedestrians called the police. The following morning, the local public security bureau explained on its microblog that the unfortunate incident was caused by a worker's computer error at the place where the screen is controlled. That's great. "Computer error" is exactly how I explain it, too. We've seen this before, by the way. (Not the movie.) In Henan province in June, a prankster hooked his laptop to an outdoor big screen and streamed porn for 20 minutes before anyone intervened. The dude was detained for 15 days as a result. Much better to claim it was an accident, in other words. Oops! Western porn showcased on large LED screen in a public square in Zhongshan (The Nanfang)

Apple And Facebook Report Being Hacked, Maybe (Or Maybe Not) By The Chinese Posted: 19 Feb 2013 06:44 PM PST On the heels of Mandiant's eye-opening report on alleged Chinese hacking under the auspices of the People's Liberation Army, Facebook and Apple have said they too — like literally everyone else — have been "hacked." Some Apple employees reportedly dipped their fingers into cyber traps designed to infect their computers with malicious software. "The same software, which infected Macs by exploiting a flaw in a version of Oracle Corp's Java software used as a plug-in on Web browsers, was used to launch attacks against Facebook, which the social network disclosed on Friday," according to Reuters. No one is safe, apparently: Charlie Miller, a prominent expert on Apple security who is co-author of the Mac Hacker's Handbook, said the attacks show that criminal hackers are investing more time studying the Mac OS X operating system so they can attack Apple computers. For example, he noted, hackers recently figured out a fairly sophisticated way to attack Macs by exploiting a flaw in Adobe Systems Inc's Flash software. "The only thing that was making it safe before is that nobody bothered to attack it. That goes away if somebody bothers to attack it," Miller said. Like Ra's al Ghul seeking to deliver a microwave bomb into Gotham's water main, hackers apparently wanted to deliver their treachery to a wellspring so that all of our digital lives become shrouded in paranoia. Security firm F-Secure wrote that the attackers might have been trying to get access to the code for apps on smartphones, seeking a way to infect millions of end-users. It urged developers to check their source code for unintended changes. Facebook said a few things too. Gee, who will protect our private information — sarcasm alert — if not Facebook? All told — as was the case with media organizations who reported they were hacked — no information was reported missing. What gives? What are they setting up? There was a time — those long lost days of yore — when being hacked was a horrible, infuriating thing, because it meant lost passcodes and credit card numbers, or slower processer speeds and more pop-up ads, i.e. living the rest of your cyber life with the computer equivalent of syphilis. In our newer digital age, perhaps there should be a more subtle word for the type aggressive phishing that's happening? If Inuits can have more than a couple of words for "snow," we ought to have at least a few for "hacking," right? Something to think about. Exclusive: Apple, Macs hit by hackers who targeted Facebook (Reuters) (Image Xinhua)

Lifetime Suspensions, Major Team Penalties For Those Involved In Chinese Soccer Match-Fixing Posted: 19 Feb 2013 05:00 PM PST The latest penalties in China soccer's match-fixing drama have been a long time coming – several players, officials and referees were already sent to prison last year – but as announced Monday, they were still fairly significant. In summary: Shanghai Shenhua stripped of the 2003 league title Two teams docked 6 points each going into next year One team docked 3 points Three teams fined 1 million yuan Four teams fined 500,000 yuan Five teams' registration annulled 33 individuals banned for life (eight players, seven CFA officials, four refs, 14 club/league officials) 25 individuals banned for five years (seven players, three league officials, 15 assorted club officials) A few things stand out. First, a reminder that long before the failed Drogba-Anelka experiment, Shenhua used to be quite good. Yes, they bought the title in 2003 (though quite why they had to fix a game against the now-defunct Shaanxi Guoli, a club that finished bottom of the league by eight points that year, is beyond me). But prior to 2011, the club had finished outside the top six just three times in 29 years. Their last two finishes? 11th and 9th. Second, the decisions being made often seem to be pretty random. It was known a decade ago that Shenhua was up to no good, but the decision was previously made to punish the individuals involved and not the club, under the specious reasoning that the individuals had already departed, so it would be unfair to punish the club. So why the change now? Six points is a huge amount in a league as tight as the CSL, so Shenhua will have their work cut out for them to avoid relegation. The other team docked six points, Tianjin Teda, is in the same predicament. Despite this announcement, however, the popular opinion among fans online is that the teams got off too lightly, and that the punishments will have little effect. For comparison's sake, Italian side Juventus was initially sent down two divisions in 2006 for match-fixing, though that was later reduced on appeal, and they played in Serie B (Italy's second division) in 2006-07. Closer to home, Chinese teams have previously been relegated outright for match-fixing. Soccer in general — and particularly in this part of the world — is corrupt. Exhibit A: Europol's recent bombshell that up to 700 matches around the world look suspicious, and that ringleaders of Asian origin are to blame. China's own soccer scandal has dragged on for so long that most fans know to remain skeptical. But – insert huge caveat here – the worst finally appears to be in the past, and the league can now concentrate on improving the quality of the product. Clubs could do worse than looking closer to home for future success, rather than overpaying foreigners for instant (and largely ineffective) remedies. Mark blogs at The Li-Ning Tower.

US Security Firm Claims Shadowy Chinese Hacking Organization Has “Compromised” 141 Companies Since 2006 Posted: 19 Feb 2013 12:18 PM PST The People's Liberation Army may have been funding a massive group of Chinese hackers since 2006, according to a 74-page report by the US-based security firm Mandiant. Reading like the backpage of a Michael Crichton novel, the report details how a large hacking group, APT1, based in the Pudong district of Shanghai has been responsible for hundreds of cyber attacks in the last seven years. 87 percent of APT1's hacking victims were based in English-speaking countries, according to the report, and include "development agencies, foreign governments in which English is one of multiple official languages, and multinational conglomerates that primarily conduct their business in English." We believe that organizations in all industries related to China's strategic priorities are potential targets of APT1's comprehensive cyber espionage campaign. While we have certainly seen the group target some industries more heavily than others (see Figure 13), our  observations confirm that APT1 has targeted at least four of the seven strategic emerging industries that China identified in its 12th Five  Year Plan. APT1 also has many suspicious structural similarities to a PLA unit. Mandiant believes APT1's offices are located in a 12-story building fitted out by China Telecom and employs hundreds to thousands of employees, while "PLA Unit 61398 is also located in precisely the same area from which APT1 activity appears to originate." For its part, China/PLA has denied the allegations, the Washington Post reports. The Mandiant report goes into the nitty-gritty of the hacking process, but the takeaway is really this: never, ever open a strange attachment. Ever.

Watch A Cop Almost Do Something About This Fight Posted: 19 Feb 2013 10:45 AM PST I fought the law, and the law could not have cared less about winning. Bonus fight: in Chongqing, a man's mistress beats up his wife:

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