Here's another great documentary from our friends at Current. In "City on Steroids,"  American filmmaker Adam Yamaguchi tours the little-known megacity of Chongqing, China. Growing at a rate of nearly 200,000 people per year, Chongqing is the one of the fastest growing cities on the planet and an emblem of China's rapid urbanization. The clearly overwhelmed Yamaguchi takes viewers on a quick tour of this modern boomtown from brand new yuppie apartments to factory floors. Along the way he takes time to discuss "Desperate Housewives" with college students, lift heavy sacks with migrant workers, and get taken in a card game called "fighting against the landowner."

Check it out:

blog.ifeng.com

Zhang Ping, a senior editor of China's Southern Metropolis Weekly, recently penned several columns under a pseudonym about Chinese censorship of the situation in Tibet. One his pieces, "How to Find the Truth About Tibet," reflects on how both official and self-censorship among the Chinese media prevents Chinese readers from knowing the full story about Tibet, and laments that readers then focus their ire on perceived Western biases rather than agitating for more press freedoms. Here's an excerpt:

If the netizens [hyping inaccurate reports by foreign media] genuinely care about news values, they should not only be exposing the fake reports by the western media and they should also be challenging the control by the Chinese government over news sources and the Chinese media.  There is no doubt that the harm from the latter is even worse than the former.  When individual media outlets make fake reports about real events, it is easy to correct because just a few meticulous Chinese netizens can do the job.  When media control is exercised by the state authorities, the whole world is helpless.

There was a predictable nationalist-inspired backlash against Zhang, with Web forums labeling him a traitor and worse. Now, he's been fired.

Just after he was sacked, Zhang wrote a blog post titled, "My Cowardice and Impotence," in which he struggles with the work journalists are forced to produce in a place with so few press freedoms.

I am afraid of other people praising me as a brave newspaperman, because I know I am full of fear in my heart. I did write some commentaries on current affairs, and edited some articles that exposed the truth. I lost my job and was threatened for speaking the truth. However, to be honest, these were exceptional cases. They were my miscalculations. In my various media positions in the past decade, what I’ve practiced most is avoiding risk.

Self-censorship has become part of my life. It makes me disgusted with myself. Some of my peers are proud of their censorship skills, and like to show it off to employers. I have similar skills, and I am using them everyday. But I am deeply uncomfortable with it. I feel ashamed about it, just like an executioner knows that he is good at killing.[...]

[T]he media industry is different. I participate in telling lies to the public whenever I cancel a good news story, whenever I delete a sentence of truth, if we regard the media as a public good.[...] Even if I don’t have the courage and capacity to do more than I can do now, I should at least live honestly and conscientiously, and be aware of my cowardice and impotence.

Dana Milbank on the twilight of the Bush presidency:

Eight months before the end of his second term, President Bush is forgotten but not gone. Power has shifted to Congress, attention has moved to the campaign trail, and the White House seems at times to be just going through the motions. For many reporters who remain on the White House beat, it has become a time to phone it in -- literally.

Four minutes after the scheduled start time for yesterday's White House briefing, only 14 of the 49 seats were occupied -- and the 14 included flamboyant radio host Lester Kinsolving, who sat in the Bloomberg News seat; Raghubir Goyal of an obscure Indian American publication, who occupied the New York Times chair; and a foreign journalist in the back row, perusing the White House's Cinco de Mayo dinner menu. Though attendance eventually swelled to 28, many of the nation's leading news outlets left their chairs empty, among them National Public Radio, the Washington Times, the New York Daily News, the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune and the Politico.

Maybe we don't have to worry that Americans are too dumb to read the Economist after all.

A teenage rap duo in Chicago has recorded a track, aptly called "The Economist," that extols the British publication's breadth and brevity and samples podcast commentary by correspondents Edward Lucas and Anthony Gottlieb.

"The style in which they write is simple and concise, how do they get their sentences so precise?" the rappers wonder. [UPDATE: Matt Yglesias quips, "The answer, of course, is 'heavy-handed editing' facilitated by lack of bylines."]

And the chorus is a gem, too: "He reads the Economist so he can get the gist, its solid competence gives him confidence that his intelligence is correct."

The rappers also weigh in on accusations that the Economist pushes a particular line: "Yes, they have a bias; it's pro-democratic. And pro-free trade; they are very emphatic."

Jay-Z it is not. But it is funny stuff.

(Hat tip: Gawker, Guardian)

ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Malaysia's former prime minister of 22 years, Mahathir Mohamad, has a blog in English. It's named "Chedet" after his pen name, "Che Det" or "Mr. Det," from his days as a journalist. "Det" is short for "Mahadet," another way to pronounce his name.

Most new bloggers start out by welcoming their readers, explaining why they are blogging, and giving an overview of the subjects they plan to write about. Not so Mahathir, who gives the impression of a man who doesn't think he has to explain himself to anyone. (He was probably motivated by the blogging success of opposition politicians and the fact that the media has been ignoring his escalating criticisms of the current prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.)

If you're hoping for some of Mahathir's signature anti-Western rants, you'll be sorely disappointed. His first and so far only post is a rather boring critique of Abdullah's judicial reforms, though this is some quality armchair quarterbacking:

Is the Government proposing to work with the opposition on this issue, and so display its weakness? Will there be a quid pro quo, a bargain with the opposition? It would be interesting to see how the PM proposes to deal with this.

My humble blogging advice for you, Dr. Mahathir? Respond to FP's interview with your estranged protégé Anwar Ibrahim, who says you "underestimated" him and wrongly thought you could break him in prison. Blog readers always love a good controversy, and I promise we will link to you.

Matt Yglesias complains about the media's campaign coverage, and offers a plausible reason as to why there's such a relentless focus on trivia:

What's driving this, I think, are the dual desires to be "tough" and to be "objective." In particular, being objective is thought to preclude being tough about public policy because that would entail picking sides in ideology-inflicted arguments. And people didn't get into this business in order to provide softball coverage. So instead you ask tough questions about process or about trivia, even though there's little evidence that these are the subjects about which people want to hear.

I don't buy this last bit, because, sadly, I think there is plenty of evidence that more people are actually interested in trivia than they are the issues. Why did the Drudge Report pull in 590 million "page loads" in March? Why has the horserace-centric Politico been such a resounding success? If Yglesias really believed that more people are interested in substance, he should use his book earnings to open a new network devoted to hashing out the issues and see how it fares.

He could call it... "PBS."

I was mildly amused to see FP contributor and respected nuclear expert Joe Cirincione labeled "Obama's radioactive potato" and "an apologist for Syria" this week on Commentary's "Connecting the Dots" blog and the Powerline blog, respectively.

At issue are some comments Cirincione made on Passport back in September, when early, sketchy media reports about the alleged Syrian nuclear site were just coming out. Like me, Cirincione was highly skeptical at the time, though subsequent disclosures have obviously caused him to revise his views.

Powerline's Paul Mirengoff seems to think Cirincione is biased against Israel -- even though the latter has family in Israel and describes himself as "strongly pro-Israel." Commentary's Gabriel Schoenfeld, meanwhile, is certain that Cirincione, despite his rather explicit denial, really is secretly the top nuclear advisor to the Obama campaign. I guess conspiracy theories aren't exclusive to the Middle East.

"I am one of over a hundred experts advising the campaign," Cirincione told me over e-mail, "and have never claimed to be a top advisor, nor have I been listed that way by the campaign." Denis McDonough -- who really is a top Obama advisor -- confirmed to me that "Joe Cirincione is one of hundreds of people advising the campaign. He is not Senator Obama's top advisor."

What about Syria? "No one bats 1.000," as Cirincione tried to explain to Schoenfeld, but his track record is far better than most. And if you compare his record on Iraq to Commentary's, well -- it's just laughable. Here's Frederick Kagan writing in December 2002:

THE INVASION of Iraq is an essential requirement of American and global security. That is not simply because Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons, or even because he is actively working to acquire nuclear weapons. It is because he is a violent megalomaniac determined to recast the Middle East in his image and willing to use absolutely any means to do so, even if it results in his own destruction.

On March 23, 2003, Cirincione wrote:

Here are four likely consequences of America's first preemptive war: Instability in the Middle East will increase; Terrorism will increase; Alliances will weaken; and Proliferation may worsen.

If the United States had taken his advice and backed coercive inspections (pdf), a whole lot of American blood and treasure could have been saved -- and those consequences might have been avoided. That's a much bigger deal than some hasty comments on a blog post.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

It was to be the marquee event of the Olympic torch's tour around the world. In a triumphant show of Chinese prowess and technological know-how, the torch was to ascend to the highest point on Earth and powerfully symbolize China's dramatic entry on the world stage.

Instead, as Agence France Presse puts it, the torch's trip up Mt. Everest, which could begin as early as this weekend, has "descended into farce":

[L]ast-minute changes this week by Beijing Olympic officials called for a rapid and tightly controlled two-to-three day trip through riot-hit Tibet to Mount Everest base camp. The changes raised concerns among journalists about the health impact of ascending too quickly to the camp's elevation of 5,150 metres (16,900 feet). After foreign media requested further information on the safety concerns, Beijing Olympic Games organisers set a sudden Thursday morning payment deadline for air tickets to the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The situation descended into farce when the Olympic official tasked with collecting payments refused to accept the fees from organisations including AFP and other international news agencies as he headed to the airport to purchase the tickets. 'I'm sorry, it is too late. I am going to the airport now,' said Xu Xianhui, a Beijing Games media official. It was not immediately clear if the refusal to accept payment was part of an official government decision to keep reporters out of Tibet. Xu said the payment of some foreign media organisations had been accepted but declined specifics. Olympic organisers were asked to explain the refusal but did not immediately reply."

Officials in Beijing also announced that foreign press would not be allowed to cover the climbing team's departure from Everest Base Camp, scheduled for tomorrow.

Moreover, medical experts say the trip from Beijing (at sea level) to Base Camp should not be made in less than one week in order to allow for acclimatization. Accordingly, several news agencies pulled their reporters from the assignment due to the potential for serious health complications. Authoritarianism through bureaucracy is an art form in China.

The move is hardly surprising, considering that the reporters hoping to cover the torch's climb up Everest were to be the first allowed to enter Tibet in a month or so. Scattered reports of continued protests are still leaking out of Lhasa, despite a near-complete ban on media coverage. And Beijing is clearly paranoid that the torch's trip there will spark more uprisings. Earlier this week, an American mountaineer was kicked off Everest by officials keeping watch over the mountain after a "Free Tibet" banner was discovered in his gear. Oh, and Tibet won't be reopened to tourists next month as planned, either.

Does anyone else see a pattern developing here? At this point, it seems appropriate to ask whether the Beijing Games can even be taken seriously. So, can they?

MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images

Almost any American who has taken Chinese in the past decade should know the phrase "Meiguo ren hen xihuan da guansi" (Americans really like to sue people). It is usually presented as a point of difference between our two cultures, and McDonald's coffee inevitably comes up.

Well, the tables sure are turning. Reuters reports that a primary schoolteacher and a beautician have filed suit against CNN for the allegedly slanderous comments against the Chinese people made by Jack Cafferty. (The crotchety CNN anchor called Chinese products "junk" and the country's leaders "goons.")

The suit asks for $1.3 billion dollars -- $1 per person in China -- for "violat[ing]the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people." Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu called the suit "spontaneous action" on the part of the Chinese people.

It certainly brings new meaning to the title of Cafferty's book, It's Getting Ugly Out There.

VALERY MELNIKOV/AFP/Getty Images

Do you find Vanity Fair and Vogue just a bit too bourgeois? Are you tired of lumpen-proletarians who don't know their place trying to friend you on Facebook? Can you never find anything on TV classy enough to show on that sweet plasma screen you had installed in your breakfast nook? Well then Snob may be for you!

"Bad-boy oligarch" Mikhail Prokhorov, who at 42 is Russia's fifth-richest man and the country's "most eligible bachelor," is investing $150 million in a new lifestyle media brand called Snob. The brand will include an exclusive social networking site, magazine, and TV station, all aimed at upwardly mobile young Russians.

Prokohorov, who made his fortune by investing in nickel and gold during the 1990s, is a kind of poster boy for the champagne-drinking, Mercedes-driving set that Russians derisively refer to as "new Russians." His motivtion for this project, he says, is to reclaim the word "snob" from its connotations of unearned privilege and make it a kind of rallying cry for Russia's nouveau riche:

Snob to us means a person who is a 'self-made man', a person who has gained a right to snobbishness," he said emphasizing the main difference with the British meaning which he said referred to inherited wealth.

The Snob media empire aims to focus on "lifestyle features, business news and travel." If Prokohorov's personal hobbies are any indication, the snob lifestyle also includes skiing, art collecting and upscale prostitution rings.

After rumors spread last Friday that Putin had divorced his wife in favor of a medal-winning rhythmic gymnast, the outgoing president seemed surprisingly good-humored about the whole thing. To a crowd of journalists in Italy he said,

In other publications of the same type, the names of other successful, beautiful young women from Russia are mentioned. I think it won't be unexpected if I say that I like them all — just as I like all Russian women."

But as it turns out, Putin's last laugh was to pack a slightly bigger punch. That same day, Moskovsky Korrespondent, the tabloid that broke the story, was shut down. National Media Company, the media house under which the tabloid ran, denied any suggestion that the suspension stemmed from political pressure, claiming instead the paper had closed so that they could develop "a new concept." Incidentally, the paper’s editor-in-chief has resigned.

Perhaps National Media should consider a Russian version of Hunting Illustrated as its "new concept." It might put the company back on the big man's good side.

FILE: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Has there ever been a debate moderator as puerile, as relentlessly focused on trivia, as dogged in his pursuit of the "gotcha" moment as George Stephanopoulos?

I sincerely doubt it.

Aided and abetted by comoderator Charlie Gibson, the host of This Week chewed up nearly an hour of clock time probing, poking, and prodding the Democratic candidates on such nano-topics as "Bittergate," the tired Reverend Wright fracas, why they won't commit to a hypothetical joint ticket, and on and on -- long before the first substantive question, on Iraq. (Of course, it was asked by one Mandy Garber of Pittsburgh, not by either of the moderators.)

Not until 9:04 p.m. ET was there a question about the economy.

Something is very wrong with the priorities of the U.S. television media.

President Bush's call today to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 shouldn't be seen as any kind of White House policy shift.

If you think about it, he's really saying that it's fine for emissions to grow until then. Bush's speech today was a fairly vague and empty statement of intent, lacking in any plan to actually set specific emissions targets or reduce the United States' output. And when it does come time to halt growth, what Bush hails are the tired fallbacks: fuel-economy standards (not very helpful) and those frequently hyped and rarely identified "new technologies" that will surely do something. And since something's on the way, there's surely no need to reduce or cap today. Or so goes the thinking.

Bush devoted the majority of his remarks to what he still finds wrong with the emissions debate, making it clear how truly opposed he is to any type of regulation. He threw in a jab at the Supreme Court and its "unelected judges" for good measure:

The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate change. For example, under a Supreme Court decision last year, the Clean Air Act could be applied to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

If these laws are stretched beyond their original intent, they could override the programs Congress just adopted, and force the government to regulate more than just power plant emissions. They could also force the government to regulate smaller users and producers of energy from schools and stores to hospitals and apartment buildings. [...]

Decisions with such far-reaching impact should not be left to unelected regulators and judges. (my emphasis)

In short, the climate speech doesn't really alter the political landscape on the issue. Not a surprise, really, though I'd expected something a little more ground-shifting this morning when I read the WSJ's advance on the speech and noticed the hilariously sad Bush hedcut included therein. That Bush looks like he's had to make concessions. Apparently, though, 3-D George didn't agree.

(On a side note about hilarious hedcuts, who at the WSJ hates Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai? Because this is not a flattering rendering.)

Fire up your popcorn poppers and invite over all your friends: On Wednesday night, PBS stations nationwide will air the new National Geographic documentary Illicit: The Dark Trade, based on the bestselling book by FP Editor in Chief Moisés Naím. You can check your local listings for times. (If you live in Washington, D.C., it's on WETA TV 26 at 8:00 p.m.)

The film explores the dark underbelly of globalization, from the counterfeiting of luxury goods to money laundering to human trafficking. Highlights include live footage of a raid on a counterfeit warehouse and a moving sequence illustrating how the contaminated cough syrup that killed dozens in Panama last year originated at an unlicensed Chinese chemical factory. It also features extensive interviews with Naím and our Carnegie Endowment colleague Minxin Pei.

Here's a preview:

FP subscribers can also check out Naím's 2003 cover story, "The Five Wars of Globalization," to see where it all began.

Freddie Lee/FOX News Sunday/Getty Images

As McClatchy's Tim Johnson notes, U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley confused Tibet with Nepal five times yesterday on ABC's This Week. Whoops. (To be fair, host George Stephanopoulos didn't correct him, either.)

Perhaps, as Johnson suggests, Hadley had just been briefed on the Maoists' great victory in Nepal and got mixed up. But perhaps he was so focused on not giving any hint as to whether President Bush will attend the opening ceremonies in Beijing that he lost focus. Stephanopolous tried repeatedly to get Hadley to commit Bush one way or the other, but he wouldn't budge from his talking points.

So, why hasn't Bush announced his plans? If you think about it logically, it's actually a wise move on his part. His administration has no wish to antagonize the Chinese government and people by boycotting (just look at what has already happened to the French). But if Bush commits to attending and there is some kind of major, Tiananmen-style atrocity, he'll come under tremendous domestic pressure not to go. Even without such an event, such pressure could steadily build and he'll have to skip the opening ceremonies, at a minimum. Better to preserve ambiguity for now and potentially save the Chinese a huge embarrassment down the road.

Recently, a colleague turned me on to Vice Magazine, a Brooklyn-based project that writes about the underground music scene, extreme sports, and all things counterculture. Increasingly though, as Vice's notoriety grows, it's venturing into territory that is decidedly less fluffy. Incorporating international reporting on areas most people only hear about in wonkier publications like The Economist or The Washington Post, Vice manages to open up new worlds to its urban hipster clientele by maintaining a cynical and subversive edge.

Through print features such as "Moldova: Mental Asylums and Psychadelic Gravestones," their recent interview with the Iraqi Minister of Tourism (um, Iraqi tourism?) and now their new online venture VBS.tv, Vice founders Suroosh Alvi, Eddy Moretti, and Shane Smith have moved into territory previously uncharted, something they themselves have summed up best as "60 Minutes meets Jackass." 

VBS.tv's slogan is "Rescuing you from television's deathlike grip," and features mini-documentaries by staff members exploring news-y topics such as the lost boys of Sudan, or Palestinian media campaigns aimed at luring women and children into committing acts of terror. A documentary of their trip to North Korea features comical mash-ups of North Korean propaganda with creepily orchestrated Pyongyang tour stops and drunken noribong with government chaperones. It is at once inane and fascinating -- the Vice trademark. Check it out.

Matt Groening © 20th Century Fox

"The Simpsons" is inappropriate for children, but "Baywatch Hawaii" is alright. At least that's what the government of Venezuela says. The National Telecommunications Commission opened an inquiry last week, saying that viewers had complained about "The Simpsons" and that the network airing it could be held responsible for violating the country's Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television. On Friday, channel Televen said it was yanking the yellow cartoon family from its 11 a.m. slot, and replacing it with the babes in bikinis of Baywatch. 

I guess it doesn't sound totally crazy if you think about it from a cultural perspective. After all, Bart is constantly disrespecting his parents, and I suppose one might not want young kids to get that message.  But beauty on the beach... is that a universal Venezuelan value, no matter the age? At any rate, don't have a cow, man! Televen still might still choose to air "The Simpsons" in a different time slot.

AFP/Getty Images

The wait may finally be over.

Back in December, al Qaeda's No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that he was taking questions from the viewers of his Web videos. The sheikh apparently received over 2,000 questions and the IntelCenter monitoring service now expects the first of his video replies within the week. Watch this space for more analysis when this "Web 2.0" mass murderer addresses his public.

UPDATE: The first installment is in. Zawahiri says al Qaeda doesn't kill innocent people. The full transcript is available as a pdf here, thanks to Laura Mansfield.

Fourteen members of a Russian doomsday cult on Tuesday abandoned the remote underground bunker where they had been hiding for nearly half a year awaiting the end of the world.

Full story here.

You might very well assume that most Chinese people are angry about the Great Firewall of China. But if this new poll highlighted by Pew researcher Deborah Fallows is accurate, you are dead wrong:

[I]n a new survey, most Chinese say they approve of internet control and management, especially when it comes from their government.

According to findings from the fourth and most recent of a series of surveys about internet use in China from 2000 to 2007, over 80% of respondents say they think the internet should be managed or controlled, and in 2007, almost 85% say they think the government should be responsible for doing it.

One major reason for this overall finding, I'd have to think, is that 93 percent of respondents say that "much of internet content to be unsuitable for children."

When asked which online content they thought should be controlled, more internet users targeted the most offensive or annoying content: 87% of internet users would control or manage pornography; 86% violent content; 83% spam or junk mail; 66% advertisements; 64% slander against individuals.

But what about political content? Actually, a growing number of people think that is a problem, too:

Since 2005, the percentage of users who say that online content about "politics" should be controlled or managed jumped from 8% to 41%, by far the biggest increase of any items tested.

[Guo Liang, deputy director of the Research Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences] said that the explanation for this increase probably lies in the spate of widely publicized incidents of fraud, blackmail, sensationalism, and other abuse of Chinese citizens via the internet. The Chinese word used for "politics" in this survey, zhengzhi, is not confined simply to political rights or competition for political control but may be understood to include larger questions of public morality and social values.

There are plenty of other fascinating findings in Pew's report, so read the whole thing.