Roundup - 24/11/2009

• All outlets are reporting on the executions of Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping over their involvement in the the tainted milk scandal that hit the news last year.
  
  Zhang Yujun was found guilty of endangering public safety for selling 770 tonnes of milk laced with melamine between July 2007 and August 2008. Geng Jinping was convicted of selling the milk to the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group.
  
  Six children died from drinking the milk and more than 300,000 were made ill.
  
  
  
• The jail sentence given to Huang Qi is also a widespread story outside of mainland China. Huang Qi gave advice to the families of five children who died in the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008. The family members wanted to bring a court case against the government over the shoddy construction of school buildings which contributed to the deaths of their children.
  
  Huang Qi was sentenced to three years in prison for illegally holding state secrets although no details were given about the charge.
  
  
  
  
• The Straits Times reports that China is backing its writers in a complaint against Google. They accuse Google of copying the work of Chinese writers without permission. Wang Ziqiang, a director-general of China's National Copyright Administration said, “I personally think Google is involved in copyright infringement, we support Chinese writers, the China Written Works Copyright Society and the Chinese Writers Association to defend their rights based on law and facts.”
  
  The copyright society claims at least 17,922 books by 570 Chinese authors have been added to Google Books.
  
  
  
• According to China Daily, Health Minister Chen Zhu announced that by the end of this year there will be an estimated 740,000 people living with HIV on the mainland. This seems out of sink with an number of external reports, notably one by the US National Intelligence Council which predicted that the number of HIV positive people in China could rise to 10 million by 2010.
  
  
  
• China is mourning the loss of esteemed translator Yang Xianyi. A brief obituary will be posted shortly.