Tower de Pants

From now until 2014, a new skyscraper will be built in China every five days, according to Chinese media. One in particular has received a lot of attention this week.

Gate to the East (pictured) is a 300-metre, 69-storey skyscraper under construction in Suzhou, a city of 10 million residents about 100 kilometres west of Shanghai. The construction has inspired a great deal of criticism and humour among mainland Internet users for its shape, which users say resembles a giant pair of thermal pants or jeans. But this is not the first pants-shaped tower to come from communist China. The 234-meter China Central Television headquarters in Beijing ignited controversy in China in 2009 for its resemblance to a pair of trousers. But the Gate to the East is definitely more explicit and vivid than the CCTV headquarters. It's an elongated and low-cut version.

And speaking of versions, Amazon unveiled more powerful versions of its Kindle Fire tablet on Thursday, including one nearly as large as the iPad but priced hundreds of dollars less, and a version of its e-reader that features a next-generation screen from E Ink Corp. But my advice would be to stick to the iPad because the Kindle Fire is bound to suck.

Back to Asia, where yesterday, a Pakistani judge granted bail to Rimsha, who is a 14-year-old Christian girl detained over accusations she burned pages of the Quran in a case that has heightened religious tensions in the volatile country. The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, which represents religious minorities in the country, will pay the sum of roughly US$10,000 to secure Rimsha's release from jail, said Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, one of her lawyers and a leading member of the alliance. Because she is essentially an innocent girl with a lower than average IQ who was framed by a local cleric who planted evidence against her, Rimsha should, upon release, head to a foreign embassy and apply for asylum like Julian Assange did.