Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

A rundown of China's recent ban on the use of plastic bags.

Beijing has declared time out on Time Out. The English-language edition of the monthly magazine that gives foreign residents and visitors the latest lowdown on the coolest bars, the hippest shops and the hottest shows in the Chinese capital has disappeared. The June issue of Time Out Beijing has been banned from distribution by China's censors.

In recent years, the real estate and infrastructure boom in China has stimulated a rapid development in the plastic doors and windows sector. The sector has now become an important pillar in China's plastics industry and significantly lifted its market share. But at the same time, the sector is also facing issues such as varied quality, lack of uniform industry standards and vicious competition.

In “Distribution, China’s Next Big Opportunity,” I described why I believe the area of wholesale and retail distribution represents one of the next big opportunities in China.

In short, provisions agreed to as part of China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization at the end of 2001 have opened up the country’s distribution sector to foreign investment. Previously, distributing products in China was off-limits to foreigners.

BEIJING (AFP) - A new bar in eastern China is offering customers an unusual outlet for anger -- by allowing them to use the staff as punching bags, state media said Monday.

For the most part, the news in China about IPR protection is bad news. There are copies of DVDs everywhere, LV bags are sold in bulk, and fake pharmaceuticals are a real concern for the government.

But the news isn’t all bad. In fact, while conducting a 20 city survey on manufacturing we decided to add a simple question:

Are there any specific cases where IPR suits have been filed, and what was the outcome?

So a guy walks into a bank, right. He's got seven bags worth of cash. But get this: it's all full of those useless little jiao notes that we all throw away (or at best save for bus rides).

The clerks don't want anything to do with this, obviously, but rules state they have to accept it. This guy is my hero!

Police are trying to find eight kilograms of stolen uranium ore that was being carried around in a plastic bag as a group of men tried to sell it on the black market. The ore was refined with a home sieve, and only 35 grams have been recovered. The men say that they lost the rest.

A flight attendant's working life was once a simple round of pointing out the emergency exits and serving food and drinks to passengers. But now, faced with the threat of global terrorism, a Chinese airline is looking for 70 young ladies who can pack a punch as well as hand out bags of peanuts.