Here's a fine short essay by the New Yorker's Evan Osnos on the detention (or disappearance, if you prefer, since the police haven't admitted they've got him) of Xu Zhiyong. It's the kind of event that normally calls out for…

Joff Wild of IAM Magazine has another great blog: 'Major breakthrough for Chinese companies in the patenting stakes' , read here. Mr Wild observes that according to SIPO's statistics the first half of 2009 show that Chinese domestic companies filed mor…

Customs officers have arrested a Malaysian man and an African man for trafficking 1.6kg of heroin worth $1.4 million.

More than 1,000 people protested for a second day in central China on Thursday over pollution from a chemical plant that they say has sickened locals and poisoned surrounding farmlands, residents said.
Residents of the town of Zhentou in Hunan province demonstrated outside local government headquarters and a police station, demanding greater compensation for pollution from [...]

Cherkizovsky Market, Russia's biggest market was closed down after discovery of more than 6,000 containers of counterfeit and pirated goods from China worth US$ 2 billion. The market was described by Russia Today (RT) as a "country within a country". …

Chinalaw list member Glenn Tiffert write…

China's Ministry of Culture has published a notice on its official website, stating that it will start to investigate gang-themed illegal online games in China.
The Ministry of Culture pointed out in the notice that gang-themed illegal online games seriously threaten and distort the social laws and ethics of China, and these themes will bring bad [...]

From JLM:
A Tencent executive said that the company holds 400 patents, International Finance News reported July 28. Tencent research and development department's Patent Team Director Wang Huotao told the paper that more than 50% of Tencent employees are engaged in research and development.
Anyone want to guess how many of these 400 patents are so-called junk [...]

From a China Daily report (h/t WSJ):
At least 13 million abortions take place each year in China, compared to 20 million births.
A report in the China Daily notes the high rate of abortion and flags it as a cause for concern in a rare critique of the prevalence of abortion in China, where it is [...]

Yesterday's big news was that the stock market tanked and the government announced tighter lending.
This made me happy.
No, I'm not one of those people sitting around waiting for an economic disaster so I can sit back and watch the lovely chaos that ensues (e.g. the end of Fight Club). Actually, I'm glad that the stock [...]