Unbridled industrialization with almost no environmental regulation has resulted in the toxic contamination of one-fifth of China's farmland, the Communist Party has acknowledged for the first time.

The report, issued by the ministries of Environmental Protection and Land and Resources, says 16.1 percent of the country's soil in general and 19.4 percent of its farmland is polluted with toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, nickel and arsenic. It was based on a soil survey of more than 2.4 million square miles of land across China, spanning a period from April 2005 until December 2013. It excluded special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau.

The two were caught when a resident in Sanjiang village returned home to see them dragging his pet into their car, with three other dogs already inside. The resident alerted neighbors who ran in groups and began beating the men on the street.

The mob then smashed the men's cars with bricks, injuring one in the process. Villagers were so angry that the refused to hand the men over to police, and continued to parade them through the village. Eventually, families of the beaten men arrived and apologized on their behalf, promising to pay over 5,000 yuan in compensation.

U.S. director Oliver Stone railed against the notion of international co-productions and warned Chinese filmmakers not to become “bastardized” by attempts to become global. Stone’s remarks came while taking part in a seminar about international co-productions organized as part of the fourth Beijing Intl. Film Festival. “Most international co-productions are bullshit. They often don’t work. Money is the dictator,” said the “Wall Street” director. “’Iron Man’? ‘Transformers’? Is it really a Chinese experience?”

Just announced today, The Sand Storm is a short film directed by New York filmmaker Jason Wishnow that was shot completely under the radar in China, starring none other than dissident artist Ai Weiwei in his acting debut. How such an audacious and risky endeavor came into being is pretty mind-blowing given the heavy amount of surveillance surrounding the artist. The movie takes place in a dystopian future where Ai Weiwei plays the role of a smuggler in a world without water.