Authorities in Beijing's have reportedly used concrete to seal off wells that had served as makeshift homes for migrant workers in a particularly impoverished area in Chaoyang district. Hug China reports:
Shanghai, China’s financial hub, appears determined to compete with Beijing, China’s political epicenter, in every aspect, including pollution.
Starting Thursday, smog has shrouded Shanghai and nearby provinces, with PM2.5 readings shooting from 200 micrograms per cubic meter to as high as 700 at some air quality monitoring stations.
As of 1 pm Friday, the average PM2.5 reading in Shanghai reached an off-the-charts level of 602.5; the PM10 reading reached 671, with the highest reading recorded at 726 in Putuo district.
The latest column from New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan is about China: an article that first summarizes why it's becoming increasingly difficult for foreign correspondents to work here, then reminds its readers that the Times remains -- unlike Bloomberg, I think is clearly one implication -- a news company first and foremost.
Editor’s note: Yesterday, the UK brewery BrewDog issued an open letter on its website to call out a “fake” BrewDog pub in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. “I’ll be along to visit soon – I’m looking forward to trying the 6AM Saint and the Funk IPA,” wrote James, one of the owners. “I do still nurture a small hope, though, that imitation is the starting point for imagination for you. If next time, rather than knocking up a do-it-yourself BrewDog bar with an odd red logo, you go one step further and have a stab at your own craft beer, then you will really be onto something.” What follows is the China Craft Beer Association’s reply, written by Great Leap Brewing owner Carl Setzer.
Sharon Kui Yee-Tak, a 25-year-old former teacher’s aide at Frost School, a Maryland-based private school for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, is believed to have fled to Hong Kong, where her brother resides.
Thought Singles Day last month was a bit random? It seems that December 2 is now, perhaps unofficially, Traffic Police Day. The date, 12/2, coincides with China’s emergency traffic number: 1-2-2. In celebration of themselves, the Huizhou traffic police in Guandong released a professional music video showcasing traffic rules, as found by Eric Jou of Kotaku, set to the Korean band Crayon Pop’s song "Bar Bar Bar."
Like bacon jam, glow-in-the-dark frisbees, and Monsters University, we sure don't need this video mashup Jiang Zemin set to Gangnam Style. But we sure are glad to have it.
Pacman, Peso, and I recently returned from a 16-day Asia trip that included a five-day stay in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (as in America, the N-word is taboo in DPRK). This journey started in August when our record label, Forest Hills Tenleytown Music Group, launched a Kickstarter seeking $6,000 to fund the trip and a music video called "Escape to North Korea." With the help of a five-page feature in the Washington Post Style section and a generous $5,100 donation from James Passin (aka "The American Who Bought Mongolia”), we were able to raise $10,400 and get a lot of attention in the process. People actually cared, for some reason.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Beijing yesterday to boost China-UK relations -- to "appease" Beijing, as Western media types would put it -- and to back a new EU-China free trade agreement. A few days before, on November 29, Cameron opened a Sina Weibo account, with the first message reading: "Hello my friends in China. I'm pleased to have joined Weibo and look forward to visiting China very soon."
