LEE Chi-Leung's blog

Editor note: This is an excerpt translation of an investigative report in CBN Weekly on the monitoring of online service providers through the Guarantee system. The article tells the story behind the suspension of DNS of Wangju (http://www.ju690.cn) and Shiguang ( http://www.mtime.com) websites as a result of their failure in complying to the requirement of web-censors. The article was removed from CBN Weekly's website soon after it was published. You can find the full the Chinese version here.

(Editor note: This article is a part of an investigative report originally published in Changcheng Monthly （長城月報）in Chinese. The report, written by ChangLei （張蕾）traces the history of government and party hired online commentators, the so-called 50 Cent Party.)

Since October 2004, Communication Office of Changsha Municipal Party Committee has been insistent in delivering a daily opinion digest, Changsha Yuqing Kuaibao (《長沙輿情快報》) to major officials of Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government. For this, the office have recruited members from units such as the Municipal Party Committee Office and Training School of Changsha Municipal Committee of CPC to form a team of net commentators. These astroturfing commentators are hired with a basic monthly salary of RMB 600, with commissions depending on number of posts they posted. Each of their posts would be logged on a “net commentators management system” and counts for 50 cents.

To the surprise of many?

The decade-long civil war, or what the CPN (Maoist) section and its radical affiliates regarded as "People's War," has formally called an end last evening (21/11/2006; Nepalese Calendar: Mangsir 06, 2063) with leaders of CPN (Maoist), the Seven Party Alliance and Nepal Government signing the historical Comprehensive Peace Agreement.