Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town.

Here is an encouraging story about how the Chinese Supreme People’s Court has been rejecting a number of death sentences. So yes, the government is secretive as to how many executions take place. That could improve. But if this is one step at a time, this is quite a BIG one.

ESWN takes a critical look at why the headline "750,000 a year killed by Chinese pollution" is not a fair or informed one. His analysis raises the question of whether or not that number is actually not too bad.

Excerpt:

Seventeen people were killed and 15 injured in the attack in Kashgar, Xinjiang on August 4, four days before the Beijing Olympics and two of the terrorist have now been sentenced to death by a local court.

A lot of this result has to do with China having more people than Japan and Korea combined. Actually, China has more than 5-6 times the number of these two ...

Bar owners near the Workers' Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises.

A Chinese woman was hit by a falling cat. When no one in the building came forth with any information, she naturally proceeded to sue the lot of them.

Unfortunately the cat did not survive the fall, and cannot testify against the unknown cat dropper.

Note to readers:
Please refrain from any "Raining cats and dogs" comments.

An old Chinese saying goes: "People regard food as their prime want." The greeting words of Chinese people are so distinctive and well-known around the world: “have you eaten?” People often greet their friends or acquaintances in this way in China. Though this custom has changed among young people and is most prevalent in rural areas, it shows how Chinese people attached great importance to their food.

On Tuesday evening, Liu Xiaoyuan, who has acted as a lawyer for family of Yang Jia, announced on his blog that Yang will be executed within a week. Yang Jia’s mother told him that around 7pm, she was visited two officials from the Shanghai Higher People’s Court who notified her that the Supreme People’s Court had approved the death sentence for her son.