articles

TIME's Simon Elegant probes the significance of recent taxi strikes and China's efforts to control information:
read more »

A July profile of Kai Da factory, location of Wednesday's worker riots, called it a "Model Chinese Factory":

"The Kai Da factory in Dongguan City (unrelated to the Kai Da Toy factory in Shenzhen) is certainly among the better, or top tier, toy factories in China. But this does not mean that the factory is without violations or that the workers are paid anywhere near a subsistence level wage."
read more »

Peter Ford adds to the discussion of China's "Human Flesh Search Engines":

BEIJING - Some call it a weapon in the hands of a righteous army, forged so that wrongdoers might be smitten. Others say it simply allows a mob of vigilantes to publicly vilify and humiliate anyone they choose to pick on through grotesque invasions of privacy.

Either way, the peculiarly Chinese Internet phenomenon known as the "human flesh search engine," a citizen-driven, blog-based hunt for alleged undesirables, claimed a fresh victim this month when a mid-ranking government official lost his job.
read more »

The FDA found traces of melamine in U.S. brands, but says they pose no risk:

Public health groups, consumer advocates and members of Congress blasted the Food and Drug Administration yesterday for failing to act after discovering trace amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula sold in the United States.
read more »

Pop Matters' Brent Jensen tries to rescue Axl Rose from the critics:

W. Axl Rose is the consummate anti-hero. It would be easy to write him off as an eccentric, self-absorbed, embittered asshole, but there’s a lot more to the story if you’re really paying attention.
read more »

China Beat makes a list of China-related awards given this past year:

...In an attempt at a premature 2008 awards wrap-up, here are a few that you might have overlooked.

1. There was consternation from the Chinese state in August and September over the mention that activist Hu Jia might be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While he didn’t win the Nobel, he was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament. Hu Jia is now in prison for sedition, but he was under house arrest prior to that. You can view a video that he made during that time here.
read more »

A look at the first time the 'Human Flesh Search Engines' brought down a central government official:

Reporting from Beijing -- The private eyes in China's most famous detective agency rarely sleep, are relentless in pursuing their prey and can put Interpol and Homeland Security to shame. Oh, and they work for free.
read more »

For Wang Fei, the journey from high-flying advertising executive to jobless national hate figure began with an extramarital affair. His disgrace was absolute and immediate. Rarely is there any other outcome after one becomes a target of the "human flesh search engine."

This is the name given to the Internet-powered manhunts that have achieved notoriety across China this year. A human flesh search engine is where thousands of volunteer cybervigilantes unite to expose the personal details of perceived evildoers and publish them on the Web.
read more »

Ethan Gutmann's account is notable for its first-person observations:

Bangkok

The jeepney driver sizes us up the minute we climb in. My research assistant is a healthy, young Israeli dude, so I must be the one with the money. He addresses his broken English to me: "Girl?"

No. No girls. Take us to the .  .  .

"Ladyboy? Kickboxer?"
read more »

A review of a recent book by Paul Theroux that relives a classic journey:
read more »