Cardboard Steamed Bun Hoax

A TV report earlier this month that purportedly showed a Beijing seller using softened chopped cardboard as the main ingredient in steamed buns has been dismissed as false news.

The Beijing Municipal Government made an announcement that investigations had found an employee surnamed Zi with Beijing Television Station fabricated and directed the sensational program for higher audience ratings. Zi is being held under criminal custody.

The program, broadcast on July 8 on Beijing Television Life Channel, featured the maker of the buns, or baozi, talking about how the product was made and sold in the capital's sprawling Chaoyang District. The story gained more currency after China Central Television relayed the program nationwide later, adding to international concerns about food safety in China.

Military Deaths-Numbers Revealed

More than 300,000 service people from the Chinese military have lost their lives since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, according to a new military exhibition in Beijing that marks the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The exhibition reveals the casualties of the PRC armed forces for the first time, although it fails to elaborate on details of deaths from each war or non-combat activity.

According to PLA military history, the 1950-1953 Korean War was the conflict in which most lives were lost, with more than 140,000 deaths. During peacetime, the Chinese armed forces were also mobilized to participate in relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters. Many soldiers lost their lives while building roads on the perilous route from Sichuan Province into Tibet.

Profits Before Green China

A report on China's air, water and waste management, protection of nature and bio-diversity since 1990, by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, pointed out that the biggest obstacles to China's environmental policy implementation are at the local level.

Local authorities value economic growth above the environment, as explained by the report initiated in 2005 and released at a press conference on July 17 in Beijing.

The report urged the Chinese Government to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of environmental policies and give more supervisory and administrative power to environmental protection departments. The impact of traffic on the air quality of Chinese cities is huge, with automobiles being the top air pollution source, said the report.

Kiln Owner Gets Death For Slavery

The owner of a brick kiln has received the death sentence and 28 of his minders will be jailed, following the recent child labor scandal in Shanxi Province.

Thousands of brick kilns and small coalmines in Shanxi Province and Henan Province have notoriously forced or cheated mainly young people to work under harsh conditions, some for 14-16 hours a day with little or no pay. Mine bullies were permitted to beat "lazy" workers.

Zhao Yanbing, who was hired to supervise workers in a brick kiln in Hongtong County, was found guilty of manslaughter and unlawful detention and was sentenced to death by the Linfen Intermediate People's Court.

Zhao had previously admitted on national television to beating a mentally handicapped man to death for not working fast enough last November. Foreman Heng Tinghan was given life imprisonment for intentionally injuring workers and for illegal detention. Following his arrest last month, Heng famously said about his role in the scandal, "I felt it was a fairly small thing." Boss of the kiln Wang Bingbing was sentenced to nine years in prison for illegal detention and participating in cheating and forcing people to work.

Virtual Mania

The number of Internet users in China hit an estimated 162 million at the end of June, with nearly 100 people a minute going online for the first time, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced on July 18.

An estimated 122 million Chinese have broadband access to the Internet, according to the 20th statistical report on China's Internet development issued by the CNNIC.

One in every four Chinese Internet users, or 44.3 million, accesses the Internet by phone, largely due to lower mobile charges and about one third of users access the Internet primarily by wireless devices.

With Internet penetration rate reaching 12.3 percent, China has around 9.18 million domain names, including 6.15 million ending with "cn."