Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

Watching the big PE firms in China work out their strategies for the last year has been entertaining to say the least.

A year ago this month, Jonathan Dresner at the great Asian history group blog, A Frog in a Well, came up with the idea of an on-line Asian History carnival. Now in its 7th incarnation, this time hosted by the folks at Mutantfrog Travelogue, it's a great place to catch up on all the Asian history happenings going on in the blogospere and the rest of the world.

Philip J. Cunningham at Informed Comment Global Affairs has a great post about Chinese State TV and their Dialogue commentary program. I’m just going to excerpt the funny and historical bit below the fold, but the rest of the discussion, hopeful and realistic, is quite worthwhile. The focus is actually on the collaboration/mutual exploitation relationship between CCTV and Japan’s NHK.

In the headlines on Hackbase, one of China's largest hacker websites, claims are being made that a Chinese hacker/researcher named xyzreg has broken Kaspersky's newest anit-virus technology. His announcement was made at the Chinese 2007 Security Focus Summit. During the summit he demonstrated how to penetrate the security software defenses of Kaspersky, Norton and McAfee. He has posted the method for breaking Kaspersky 7.0 on his blog.

Many updates added.

A tale of how difficult it is to transfer money from abroad to a Chinese bank.

Ben the Barber Boy's tale of Barbershop life and Singing.

I had doubted that China's domestic spying could go this far but this excellent blog reveals a story in the Chinese press that admits that all of Beijings taxis are bugged.

BEIJING -- "Gu Gu" is one of the star attractions at the Beijing Zoo but the panda bear with a bad temper has lashed out at a fan for the second time, this time mauling a 15-year-old boy.

Eight-year-old Gu Gu, who weighs 110 kilograms (242 pounds), attacked the boy after he jumped into the animal's enclosure, the Beijing News reported on Tuesday. The boy, Li Xitao, had both his legs gnawed to the bone, the paper said.

Monday's attack was not the first time Gu Gu has tasted human flesh.

Beijing officials announced a campaign Friday to hire 40,000 inspectors by May 1 to enforce a smoking ban in public places, but only the 2,000 inspectors will be authorized to fine people". Without the authority to fine violators, inspectors will be required to use creative ways to put out butts.