Going to China in the near future? Looking for more news about what's going on? It might be getting a little more difficult - and helping out your child's Social Welfare Institute after you're back home might be getting a little more difficult too. The problem is communication.

Government officials seem to be getting a little fed up with the media after the latest food safety report reveals there's cardboard and caustic soda in Beijing's pork buns. (Traveling families: this is why you only eat at the places where you see a lot of locals eating.) At least we can look forward to some positive propaganda news management in coming months as Beijing's Olympic Year draws ever nearer. As State Food and Drug Administration Deputy Chief Zhang Jingli says, "We must correctly handle oversight from public opinion, and actively support and guide the media in enhancing oversight."

Active support and guidance is probably as good a rationale as any for why the Chinese language version of the China Development Brief has been shut down. It was, apparently, making it too easy for Chinese NGOs to organize - and the government there doesn't much care for Non Government Organizations.

Even when the NGOs in question do things like, oh, organize clean water for Social Welfare Institutes or other services for orphanages. The CDB plays a vital role in all those charities we like supporting around the SWIs, everything from Médecins Sans Frontières to Half the Sky.

So, authorities found British-born editor Nick Young guilty of conducting "unauthorized surveys." As long as they can keep going, I can recommend perusing their Gender and Social Welfare archives for plenty of information on issues central to international adoption - breaking news and ongoing issues facing the mothers and children of China (and ways that you and people like you can help).

At the same time, and along the lines of Yahoo's ethically dubious dealings with digital freedom-of-speech issues in China, Flickr seems to have helped get a Chinese citizen in trouble. It's a bit complicated, but they seem to have recategorized Jacob Appelbaum's photos as a favor to Chinese authorities. This is an issue because Hong Kong blogger Oiwan Lam was in trouble for linking to the art photos, some of which show nudes and rope (but aren't actually sexual per se), and when Lam got in trouble, she based her defense on the idea that no one considered the photos obscene. I certainly never did myself, but then again I wouldn't. Lam could spend a year in jail. For a link on a blog.