From the Guardian:
"Young girls are lured to the UK with the promise of lucrative, respectable careers. Some as young as 11, they arrive without passports or visas, some claiming asylum at British airports, having paid traffickers thousands of pounds for their transit."

"The eruption of the U.S. sub-prime crisis has exposed massive loopholes in the United States' financial oversight and supervision," writes the commentator, Shi Jianxun, "The world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States."

Danwei explores an article in the Mirror that illustrates how hospitals sell off their patient's personal information. A Mirror reporter interviewed a sales manager for a milk powder producer who described how his company spends several million yuan every year to obtain the personal information of expecting mothers, and millions more to curry favor with hospital administration and staff.

On the morning of September 18, a grand wedding ceremony was held for two tibetan mastiff dogs in Kaifu area of Changsha City, Hunan province. The two dogs are less than two years old. The affectionate couple frequently "kissed" during the ceremony, arousing roars of laughter from dozens of onlookers.

A former professor beamed us into her Intercultural Communication class this week for a little Q&A session. They had great questions, and it was tons of fun… thought I’m not sure how much we’ll remember, seeing as how we were tanked up on coffee and didn’t sign off ’til 3am. They e-mailed some questions beforehand, and we’ve posted brief answers to some of them below.

Cookies from a major Japanese confectioner and Chinese-made baby cereal and crackers were the latest products caught up in tainted milk scandal Friday, while Taiwan reported three babies with kidney stones in the island's first cases possibly linked to the crisis.

Two Chinese dissidents, Gao Zhisheng and Hu Jia are the favourites for the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced on October 10.

A Chongqing woman who got into minor accident with a BMW is dragged to her death after the BMW driver's friend tries to drive away with her keys in a Porsche.

Five hundred 18-year-old freshmen men at Shanghai's Fudan University had their first shave yesterday in a ceremony celebrating their entrance to manhood.

Respiratory disease is already a leading cause of death in China, but this latest study suggests a startling rise. In the 30-year period, it calculates, about 83 million Chinese people will die prematurely of lung disease. That includes lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an even bigger killer.