In recent years technology giants Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have been widely criticised for their business practices in repressive countries such as China. But yesterday the trio tackled their critics by joining a new scheme to help protect the freedoms of internet users around the world.

The Global Network Initiative, a new human rights coalition, says it is working to help companies stand up to authoritarian governments in countries such as China, Vietnam, Syria, Burma and Iran.

As well as the triumvirate of hi-tech companies, the group is also being backed by a wide range of campaigners and academic organisations, including Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The initiative aims to “protect and advance user rights to freedom of expression and privacy”…

KHARTOUM — Kidnappers killed five Chinese oil workers on Monday out of nine they had been holding hostage in central Sudan for more than a week, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry blamed the Justice and Equality Movement, a Darfur rebel group, for seizing and killing the Chinese.

“Five were murdered. Two were able to escape with minor injuries,” ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig said. The two workers who escaped were now in the hands of the government, Mr. Sadig said, while the kidnappers were still holding the remaining two.

“This incident happened without any provocation,” he told Reuters. JEM leaders were not available for comment.

The kidnapping was the third such incident in the energy-producing state of South Kordofan in the past year…

A girl who wrecked a KTV room in June was given a four month sentence last week.

Author Yiyun Li argues that Eileen Chang’s later writing suffered more for personal reasons than because of the Communist Revolution:

…As I reread Chinese writers of the first half of the twentieth century, I confront similar complexities: What if the Communist Revolution had never occurred? Shen Congwen would have continued to produce masterpieces, rather than suffering a breakdown due to the crushing political pressure of the time, as he did in reality, and giving up fiction altogether. His is the most tragic loss for Chinese literature of the past century, at least in my very biased view as a great admirer of his work, and perhaps in the opinions of the editors of The Guardian, who included him a few years ago among a list of ten translated writers who should be read more widely. Lu Xun, on the other hand, would not have been codified as a literary god. He was a fine storyteller, but ideology was a magnifying glass that swelled his artistic merit beyond reason.
Like Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang was a writer censored by the Maoist government; however, her trajectory as an artist was far less influenced by their shared historical context. (I am very aware that this perspective will be frowned upon by many of her followers, and indeed Chang has more loyal followers than perhaps any other Chinese author.) …

SHANGHAI, Oct. 23 — The European Parliament on Thursday awarded its top human rights prize to jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia despite warnings from China that its relations with the 27-nation bloc would be seriously damaged if it did so.

In selecting Hu to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European lawmakers said they are “sending out a signal of clear support to all those who support human rights in China.” Hu has advocated for the rights of Chinese citizens with HIV/AIDS and chronicled the arrest, detention and abuse of other activists.

The award honors Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who was a leader in the country’s pro-democracy opposition party.

“Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights in the People’s Republic of China,” European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering said in announcing the award…

A cartoon at Youth Weekend pokes some fun… at what?

BEIJING — For three decades, China has fueled its remarkable economic rise by becoming the world’s workshop and unleashing a flood of low-priced exports. But faced with a possible global recession and weakening demand for Chinese exports, the question now is whether the ruling Communist Party can prevent the financial crisis from derailing the country’s economic miracle.

This question is pressing not just for China but also for the rest of the world. American officials and many economists say continued Chinese growth is vital to the global economy as the United States and Europe face severe downturns.

Yet to navigate the crisis, many analysts say, China will need to recalibrate its economic model, stoke domestic investment with heavy government spending and promote policies to increase consumer demand in a nation known for high savings rates…

THE CEO of Shenhua Energy takes an interview with PBS Frontline:

When people talk about China and coal, they think of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. What kind of plans do you have to address [that]?

It’s a good question. As a coal-based energy company, we have a lot of things to do. Not only the CO2 issue — we must make the environment better than before.

I mean, [in previous coal development here,] it was a desert — no trees or grassland. But over 10 to 20 years, we have planted a lot of trees, grassland, so that the forestation now has been increased to 70 percent. In our underground coal mines, we have a system to reuse the waters so we can save more than 85 to 90 percent of total waters. …

And in the western region, we have power plants’ cooling systems [using] wind, the air, so that we can save a lot of water. I invite you to pay visit to our coal mines. Seeing is believing…

So let me ask you this. When do you expect — cost aside — when could you capture and store all the carbon dioxide that your thousands of power plants are generating?

I cannot give you that prediction. The first thing is, it’s not a major business model. And globally, there is no successful large commercial example. So it’s not only us…

Profiles of Chinese affected by the world financial crisis:

WANG HAO, GEOLOGICAL ASSISTANT, MU COUNTY, TIBET AUTONOMOUS REGION

I work for a copper exploration company, a joint venture run by a British mining firm and a Chinese mining bureau.
I feel the economic pressure in this industry. Metal prices are going down and I am worried that investors in Europe and the US will also reduce their exploration activities in China.
What people think about the metal sector thousands of miles away affects my livelihood here - even though I feel very removed from it.
I work and live in an extremely rural area. The scenery is beautiful, especially in the summertime. It’s getting cold now and the landscape is barren. We are planning to shut down the project temporarily because it is simply too cold….

Naked art in Beijing’s 798 district. Manhunt in Beihai. Rounding up drunks. Bruce Lee’s bathroom. China’s aid to America. Red wine targets the peasants. 1,600 pandas. Mummy on the Metro. Drunk and out of tune.