The story of blind Chinese dissident and human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, currently a visiting scholar at NYU, has taken an all-too-familiar turn: Chen has reportedly fallen in with a group of strident religious conservatives who have persuaded him to accuse NYU (falsely) of evicting him.
After spending just 10 days working inside a Foxconn factory putting metal backs on iPhone 5s, an undercover reporter for the Shanghai Evening Post (translated by Micgadget) confirms both the monotony and physical taxation of the job.
The Chinese government still won't say what's going on with "missing" vice president Xi Jingping, but assurances that his absences are no big deal don't sound very reassuring.
The man expected to take over China's presidency hasn't been heard from in nine days, and with no official explanation for his absence, the state is making some bizarre attempts to downplay his disappearance.
Foxconn has defended itself against charges that the company is forcing teenagers to assemble iPhones, saying it's okay to have underage workers put in 12-hour days because they can leave if they want.
News broke overnight that two earthquakes hit China, but read the numbers a second time and they offer a small but striking reminder of just how crowded and vulnerable to disaster parts of that country are.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Foxconn and Apple are the two names we usually hear in discussions of the poor working conditions involved in making our favorite gadgets. But a just released report from the labor rights group China Labor Watch brings Samsung's dirty practices to our attention.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Hillary Clinton arrived in China on Tuesday, in what's likely to be her last trip there as Secretary of State, but that milestone didn't stop China's state-run media outlets from printing scathing editorials about her and the U.S.'s growing unpopularity in the country.
In light of poor domestic wine sales in China, a bidder at a wine festival auction smashed a bottle of French white wine after paying 100,000 RMB (or $15,000) for it, hoping the demonstration would encourage people to buy more Chinese wine, according to e-magazine Tea Leaf Nation.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Kim Jong-Un has reportedly requested a formal state visit to Beijing, but his Chinese neighbors may not thrilled by the idea of North Korea's leader crashing on their couch.
If investment in education is correlated with business competition, then the U.S. better watch out: India and China are on our tails as far college graduates go, according to this chart by research institute Center for American Progress.
At a news conference in Moscow Tuesday, Syria's Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil warned the U.S. against foreign military intervention, saying such efforts would lead to "a confrontation wider than Syria's borders."
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
In what's actually a pretty scary scene over in Shenzen, China where anti-Japanese protests have culminated in rioting, comes this odd story about a mob so blinded by anti-Japanese rage that they trashed a Japanese restaurant only to find out that it was actually owned by a Chinese person.
Part of the reason Gu Kailai wasn't sent directly to death row after being found guilty Monday in the death of Briton Neil Heywood was that he reportedly threatened her son, something his family in Britain has never denied publicly.
Shortly before Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, was sentenced to a suspended death sentence on Monday, The Financial Times became the latest news organization to entertain the theory that the woman shown in the trial (above left) wasn't Gu, but a look-alike.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
The very act of public protest is unusual in China, but the anti-Japanese demonstrations that have raged there in recent days further the interests of the ruling party, so they're given a pass even though the official media plays down their size and violence.
Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, was spared the death penalty on Monday after being found guilty of murdering a British business man.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
There's a sex scandal brewing in China, and the photos associated with it may just be the cheesiest in the history of online scandals.
As the battle for Aleppo continues, Syrian rebels and President Bashar al-Assad are ramping up outreach to their respective allies.
When Gu Kailai's murder trial ended after just seven hours on Thursday, the same-day stories still carried very few details about the crime, but now, thanks to leaks from the courtroom, we finally have a narrative, and it's juicy.
Whether or not there is prostitution in the Macau casinos owned by big-time GOP donor and casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson isn't the point of his lawsuit against a Jewish organization he accuses of libel.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Discovered: Revisiting an experiment used to disprove free will; creatine helps women batlle depression; dilated eyes show sexual attraction; mothers underestimate the rise of childhood obesity in China.
If you want to censor the Internet in China, you'd better be a part of the government, or else you might get arrested and then fired like the three Baidu workers accused of deleting posts for pay.
An interesting detail surfaced amid the reporting Friday that the murder trial for Gu Kailai (at right), the wife of disgraced politician Bo Xilai, would start next week: She's not expected to get the death penalty to which she's exposed under law.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
In today's tour of state-sponsored media: Chinese media combat drug doping rumors, North Korea's Olympic coverage gets meta and Hong Kong parents have a bone to pick with Beijing.
Only one thing is certain in Syria following the resignation of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan: It will be impossible to find a more seasoned diplomat to fix the mess it's in.
One certainly sympathizes with the increasingly annoyed Olympic badminton crowd, which booed the women's doubles teams on Tuesday when they simply refused to play, a move that got eight players disqualified from the games.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
After the wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai was arrested for murder on Thursday, the state is getting ready for its highest profile criminal case in years, and while it really wants to project an image of fairness, nobody's buying it.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Li Guilian is the woman in charge of making those non-American American Olympic uniforms, and she just can't understand why we're all so mad that Ralph Lauren's makers are Chinese—especially since China gives us such wonderful cheap products.
The Bo Xilai political scandal is officially a crime story now, as his wife, Gu Kailai, has been charged with murder.
In today's tour of state-sponsored propaganda: Iran spots a spooky trend in America, China cleans up its flood coverage and a propaganda legend dies.
Today in books and publishing: Man Booker longlist announced; unpacking the DOJ's e-books suit; DC delays new Batman comic; titles censored in China sell quick in Hong Kong.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
At this point, it's not really clear that U.N. sanctions against Bashar al-Assad's regime would do anything to quell the violence in Syria, but we'll never find out since Russia and China vetoed the latest Security Council resolution today, the third time they've done so in the 16-month conflict.
Some experts greeted China's announcement in June that The Great Wall is actually about 2 and a half times longer than previously thought with skepticism, suggesting their motives might not be purely archaeological.
In today's tour of state-sponsored propaganda: A Chinese propagandist hits the mark, North Korea misidentifies its own foreign minister and press freedoms dwindle in Egypt.
In today's tour of state-sponsored propaganda: Iran gets whimsical about its navy, China disses Hillary, and Russia slashes its propaganda outlets.
If the berets and double-breasted young Republican look that the U.S.'s Olympic athletes will be wearing during the opening ceremony in London aren't doing it for you sartorially, we'll give you one more reason to hate these things. Ralph Lauren had these duds made in China--just like four years ago.
China has finally decided to support Kofi Annan's efforts in Syria, now that he's calling for action the United States doesn't like—mainly because it may involve Iran.
The rewards for heroically foiling a hijacking attempt are many and fleeting, from fame to gratitude to hero status, but in China there's more: Cash, apartments, and cars.
In one of the more amusing and intriguing stories of Chinese censorship, it appears state-run China Central Television just couldn't decide whether or not Michelangelo's David was classified as porn, so they decided to pixelate the statue's famous junk.
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