After an internal audit, the Chinese government announced that 53 central departments have mismanaged a total 30 billion RMB in tax money. The people’s government used the people’s money recklessly. Provincial governments used donations for rebuilding efforts in Sichuan to balance their books; establishing fake projects to ask for more money; taking away scholarships for other uses. All these are crazy stuff that shouldn’t happen in country like China. At least, the Morning Post is allowed to publish this headline. China is improving, but how much money will be taken away before a concrete balance of power is set in place?

Front Page Story

Liu Xiang flew back to Shanghai yesterday. He is expected to rest and go back to training soon. I think he made the right decision in protecting himself by not compete on an injured foot. If he is determined, he still has a chance to come back four years from now.

Other headlines today

• Shanghai is attracting talent by offering the Shanghai hukou just like developed nations offering citizenship. No doubt that Chinese are rushing to the biggest city in search of a better life, so don’t expect the commute to get any easier anytime soon.

• There is another hijack in Sudan involving a group of terrorists with a weird name. Blah, blah, blah. The story is two cheap terrorist wanted to go to Paris. They don’t have any money, so they decide to hijack a plane. They succeed but later find out the plane doesn’t have enough fuel. They land in Libya and try to negotiate with the police for a map and some fuel. Eventually, they give up. I just want to say that whichever terrorist group these two hijackers belong to better hire a more sophisticated recruiter. No matter what you trying to do, you need people with something called a brain.

• The Bank of China is being sued by victims of terrorist attacks in Israel on charges of money laundering for various terrorist groups. Its spokesman denied the accusation and will face the charges in court if summoned to proved its innocence. Only god knows the truth.

• A bit later than usual on the post today as I was tied up with a customer who needs more products this month. The poor guy needs to secure a certain number of products before he can return to Spain. After 4 hours of staring at each other, he finally gets the point that no more products were available. I am just glad I have time to finish the post today.

Zaobao! Zabao! is a daily article by Li Yizhong that translates and puts into brief perspective the headlines of the Shanghai Morning Post's daily newspaper. Read more of his work on the Zaobao! Zaobao! blog.