The Max Planck Institute in German was embarrassed to learn that the "poetry" that graced their special issue on China was effectively an ad for a brothel in Macau promising, among other things, "hot housewives in action."

Milk tainted with the chemical melamine has sicken 53, 000 children in China. Now, reports are surfacing that the tainted milk have found its way into other milk-containing products and have sicken animals as well.

China has publicly came out and admitted that shoddy construction may contribute to the school collapses during the Sichuan earthquake.

"There were possibly some construction problems because we have built schools relatively quickly in recent times," said Ma Zongjin, chairman of the committee to investigate the quake.

Read more over at the BBC.

The Olympics are already having a positive effect on Beijingers. Now they got a taste of how much better life is with cleaner air and less traffic congestion, they want it to remain that way.

According to the BBC, Beijing residents are increasingly vocal about keeping the emergency measures introduced to improve the air quality during Olympics. A survey conducted by the Beijing News found that nearly 70% respondents are in favor keeping the traffic restrictions. There are even reports of people protesting the re-opening of a trash incinerator within the city.

"Citizens' expectations have already been driven up by the Olympics," said city official Tan Zhimin.

Will the measures remain? Probably not in the short term. They like the wealth that comes with the traffic and pollutants to give that up.

Longer term though, Beijing will probably do what most wealthy nations do: Ship their trash and pollutants to poorer parts of the country to be dealt with.

Listen to NPR's report.

China wasn't the first Olympics host country to pull a Milli Vanilli on the unsuspecting world; it turned out Australia was.

According to the AFP, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was miming to a recording of another orchestra in one of their performance in the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony.

"It's correct that we were basically miming to a pre-recording," SSO managing director Libby Christie said.

Christie said the recording was used because of workload issues and the organizers wanting "to leave nothing to chance."

China received a fair amount of criticism when it was found out that the little girl who sang in the opening ceremony wasn't singing in her own voice, but was lip-syncing to another's.

In an attempt to control rampant corruption in the government, China has amended a law to make it easier to prosecute the family members and lovers who took advantage of their relationship with government officials for monetary gains.

The 2008 Beijing Games got off to a great start, we're told. But where are the protesters?

In response to criticism that it is stifling free speech, China has designated three public parks for citizens to air their grievances.

One person was killed and 23 others were injured after a 6.2 earthquake, an aftershock of the one in May, hit the Sichuan Province at 6PM local time on Aug 5, just hours after the Olympic torch passed by the area.

To insure the services will be stable and available for the Olympic Games, China tells phone and internet providers not to add any new customers in August.