April 3, 2008
Big headline: subsidized housing hotline
Beijing has released phone numbers of the department in charge of auditing applicants for government subsidized housing.
Suicide blog lawsuit
Tianya.cn, Daqi.com and a Chinese blog named Northward Imigrant Bird (北飞的候鸟), were sued by a man named Wang Fei (王菲) (not to be confused with female pop star), for publishing slanderous posts.
Wang’s wife, Jiang Yan (姜岩), who had kept a blog that implied her husband was having an extramarital affair, committed suicide last year. After her death, posts on her blog were reposted by the above mentioned websites and caused intense rage among netizens. Her husband’s infidelity was widely believed to be the cause of Jiang’s suicide. Wang said he had lost his job and received several death threats because of the Internet postings.
Other stories also on the front page
• The big picture shows Zhou Jie (周杰) who was investigated by police for allegedly intentionally hurting a security guard after a verbal conflict near the 798 art district. Zhou is a TV star got famous for appearing in the smash hit 1998 TV series Princess Pearl (还珠格格) in which he played Er Kang, a charming Qing dynasty aristocrat.
• Jin Long Yu (金龙鱼), a cooking oil brand, announced that it would not raise it prices as previously scheduled.
• He Qingkui (何庆魁), a comedy scriptwriter has been accused by the police of being involved in a business fraud. He is best known for his short comedies acted by Zhao Benshan (赵本山) in the Spring Festival galas of recent years.
• Beijing has added four temporary “tomb sweeping” trains to accommodate people visiting their family graves outside of Beijing tomorrow for Qingming Festival.