The story is about how China's online commentators, so called "Five Mao Army (50 cents for each post) ", post  information in order to "brainwashing" netizens or "redirecting" public opinion in major Chinese news portals, such as Xinhuanet.com, people.com.cn and sounthcn.com etc.Theoy online commentators work as part-time or full time employees for companies and government entities.
 
Here is the link: 
Invisible footprints of online commentators
http://special.globaltimes.cn/2010-02/503820.html

Businessweek reports:

ZHANGLIDONG, China

Visitors can smell this village long before they see it.

More than 100 dump trucks piled high with garbage line the narrow road leading to Zhanglidong, waiting to empty their loads in a landfill as big as 20 football fields.

In less than five years, the Zhengzhou Comprehensive Waste Treatment Landfill has overwhelmed this otherwise pristine village of about 1,000 people. Peaches and cherries rot on trees, infested with insect life drawn by the smell. Fields lie unharvested, contaminated by toxic muck. Every day, another 100 or so tons of garbage arrive from nearby Zhengzhou, a provincial capital of 8 million.

"Life here went from heaven to hell in an instant," says lifelong resident Wang Xiuhua, swatting away clouds of mosquitoes and flies. The 78-year-old woman suddenly coughs uncontrollably and says the landfill gases inflame her bronchitis.

As more Chinese ride the nation's economic boom, a torrent of garbage is one result. Cities are bursting at the seams, and their officials struggle to cope.

The amount of paper, plastic and other garbage has more than tripled in two decades to about 300 million tons a year, according to Nie Yongfeng, a waste management expert at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Read more at the link.

StrategyPage reports:

September 25, 2009:
China has hired professional female models to march in a parade. This was seen as very important for the survival of the communist government. The October 2nd parade in China, to celebrate 60 years of communist rule, wants to make China, and its government, look good. To that end, the parade organizers are having contingents, from all the military organizations in China, march past the high def TV cameras. Being a communist police state, there are lots of uniformed groups. Many have female components. The parade organizers particularly wanted to insure that the women in uniform looked good. Not just military good, but good.

When they discovered that the female contingent from the People's Militia did not measure up, they proceeded to hire models, from as far away as Singapore, to pretty-up the women's contingent of the People's Militia.

Life isn't easy for people who happen to be living near Tiananmen Square in the run-up to the 60th Anniversary celebrations.

FuturePundit says:
Bloomberg reports on an interview with the President of Japan Steel Works that China will build more than double previous estimates. 132 units will take China way past the US (at 104 units and probably smaller average size) in total nuclear reactor capacity.

The country may build about 22 reactors in the five years ending 2010 and 132 units thereafter, compared with a company estimate last year for a total 60 reactors, President Ikuo Sato said in an interview. Japan Steel Works has the only plant that makes the central part of a large-size nuclear reactor’s containment vessel in a single piece, reducing radiation risk.

More nukes means a slower growth rate in coal electric power plant construction. The total amount of CO2 emissions from Chinese plants will continue to rise. But it would rise as fast and as far as previously projected.

That high build rate should bring down costs and make China the low cost leader in nuclear power plant construction.

The Shanghai market fell more than 5 percent yesterday. The Bespoke Management Group says:
 It wasn't long ago that China's Shanghai Composite was sporting triple-digit gains for the year, and investors were wondering how high it would go. But today the main question is when will the selling stop? In a span of only ten days, the Shanghai Composite has lost 17.5% of its value, bringing the index dangerously close to the technical threshold for a bear market (-20%). Given that many were relying on China to help lead us out of the economic recession, the action in China's stock market is helping US equities start the week off on a notably bad note.

Click the link to view a chart. What is your view?

The NY Times says:
Air pollution in eastern China is altering rainfall patterns there, resulting in fewer days of light rain, American and Chinese researchers report in an article to be published Saturday. The researchers, who based their conclusions on mathematical models and rainfall data from scores of weather stations in the region, attributed the change to high levels of particulate pollution. It has long been known that particles in the atmosphere, including pollutants, encourage the formation of water droplets and hence rainfall. But the researchers theorize that there are now so many particles in the air that when droplets form they are too small to fall as rain.

The Chinese nationalist newspaper Global Times begins competing with the Shanghai Daily and China Daily with the launch of the first edition of its new English newspaper.

Unhappy China contains severe criticism of western countries, with the harshest words reserved for the United States. "We Chinese need to tell the western world we are not happy about what they did to us.”

Chinese netizens react to the sale of the imperial bronze relics by Christie's auction house. Many believe the fake bid put forward by Cai Mingchao was noble, even if he can't afford to pay the $40 million he bid. But 17.8% remain opposed, saying he has damaged China's reputation.