Chinese spy agency awards highest honour to pedantic, finicky management team

Local spy agencies are on damage control this morning, after the Chinese secret service awarded China’s highest honour to a group of citizens for “their tireless and intricate efforts to derail the capitalist machine at every imaginable moment.”

A spokesperson for the secret agency – which doesn’t have a name, because that’s the whole point of a secret – said that the indefatigable work of Judy McKennen from HR, senior manager Mike Kromanaj and Bob from Accounting to “disrupt and waylay every step of the Western Capitalist ideology with unnecessary Red Tape, endless bureaucracy that boggles common sense, and an unceasing wave of forms, authorisation requests and subcommittee deliberations” was “inspiring to all anti-capitalist patriots and worthy of the Gold Star of The People’s Republic.”

“When it comes to Judy, Mike and Bob’s stance against the disgusting and hateful Capitalist system, no effort is wasted,” said the agency in a declassified statement yesterday. “Whether it’s requiring that all paperwork be filled out in triplicate and each paged initialed and countersigned by the heads of management, or that carbon copies of all minutia be collated and in alphabetic – not chronological – order, these three have the capitalist pigs in their cross-hairs.”

The agency now says that not even their best agents could so effectively halt and hinder good, positive business practices that would otherwise bring order, efficiency and sanity to the work environment.

“They take it to the next level – a level our field operatives could never in their wildest dreams consider possible,” they continued. “Having three-hour-long meetings that deliberate the syntax and semantics of what are in effect trivial policy documents before deferring the matter to a three-week subcommittee inquiry; micromanaging employees to an extent where even the most menial and basic of tasks – such as stacking boxes – can’t be done without oversight; or making sure that all documents of extreme importance are lost, subjected to massive delays or simply filled in incorrectly – this team has the Communist agenda’s manifesto right at its heart.”

And it’s not just the management team that was awarded this prestigious medal – the Honourable People’s Star of Devotion (an equally important award) was given to Erik in sales.

“Erik is also a true patriot,” said the agency at the awards ceremony. “He takes hours to complete even the most simply job, breaks tool and equipment, wastes company time and resources, steals their stationary, and always has to double- and triple-check with management before doing literally anything. And then, after coming in late, fourteen coffee breaks and two hours wasted on social media, he clocks off for an early lunch.”

“And the most surprising thing is that Erik isn’t even on our list of active agents, yet he does our work so well,” said the agency. “The only reasonable explanation we can think of is that he is one of code-red operatives so deeply embedded in the imperialist West that not even we know he’s working for us.”

“I mean, surely no thinking human being could ever be this wilfully shit at their job? Right?”

US Army to militarise cellphones

After years of research and experimentation over why you’re not allowed to have your phone switched on whilst on an aeroplane, the American military has announced their successful weaponisation of cellphones.

“For years we have known that cellphones are hugely dangerous to aircraft,” said US Military spokesperson Mike Rowave. “Perhaps almost as dangerous as bottled water and nail clippers. When we heard that Federal Aviation Authorities had made rules banning their use, we knew there was a potential way to use these devices in the field of combat.”

The US Army and Airforce have now announced a whole new range of weapons and projectiles that use this technology to deadly effect.

“We have a new missile which hits the enemy craft and injects thirty cellphones into it. None of these phones, however, are on Flight Mode, meaning that the pilot’s navigation and plane controls will be completely disrupted, rendering the plane utterly useless.”

Rowave also said that they have developed a series of brand-specific weapons, such as the Blackberry Remote Guided Missile and the iPhone smart bomb – though each of these has proven to have their flaws.

“The Blackberry bomb is excellent and easy to use, but sometimes the screen that you control it from will turn white, making it unusable,” he said. “And the iPhone bomb is custom designed to go deep, deep underground and take out enemy bunkers, eliminating enemy defence systems you've probably never heard of - but these munitions are heavily limited in effective range because their battery runs out so quickly.”

"This bomb also has targeting issues," admitted Rowave. "During testing we started typing 'China' into the target bar, and it replaced it with 'Chicago'. We're still hard at work ensuring non of these potentially embarrassing and world-ending errors sneaks through the R&D phase."

The only major success they have had so far, in fact, has proven too successful and effective at destruction to be legally usable.

“We came up with a mounted gun that shoots Nokia 3310s, and its deadly powers were awe-inspiring, but we’ve had to stow it away in a bunker because it was banned by the Geneva convention. Apparently it’s a Weapon of Mass Destruction – some people think that if we aim low and hit the ground, the old brick could plough deep into the planet and destroy the Earth’s core.”

However, despite this announcement Chinese and North Korean military forces say they are unworried and have already come up with adequate and impregnable defences against this new age of weaponry.

“These missiles won’t even reach us,” said General Sum Ting Wong of the Chinese Republican Army, “because we’ve strapped massive Vodacom Cellphone Towers onto each of our planes. As soon as these weapons come into range, they will be bombarded by network errors and simply drop out of the sky, like it does with any phone call lasting longer than eight seconds.”

Study finds Asian child bones may save the rhinos

The medical research community is celebrating today, after conservation experts discovered a scientific breakthrough that could potentially save thousands of endangered Black and White Rhinos.

According to researchers working at the Institute for Animal Medical Studies, the answer could lie within the crushed-up bones of Asian people. Preliminary findings of the report now suggest that Asian bone has the power to turn these otherwise docile creatures into horny breeding machines - a potential turn-around for their decimated populations.

The discovery - which has profound ramifications for rhino populations threatened by extinction - has come just in time too.

"It really is a game-changer," said head research manager Jenn Oside. "We've been having problems with our rhinos. They have been in long-term commitments with other older rhinos, and the spice of their love lives just isn't there any more. This medicine is helping them with some of their... less hard problems. If you know what I'm saying."

However, research and business analysts have been quick to say that current market trends are just not feasible to turn it into a working cure to the current extinction threats.

"It turns out that there are a lot of people who get all upset just because we want to crush up something they love into a cure for sexual problems," said Jake Henderson, lead chemical engineer for the program. "Hell, some places even have laws in place to stop these kinds of medicines."

These stumbling blocks, however, will not stop them, says Henderson.

"Right now we're working on more... inventive... ways of getting our Asian Bone. We are currently sending some key businessmen to hire the marginalised poor to go into schools and child reserves to acquire the required materials, he said. "These men and women would form part of the Program for Ossified Asian Chemical Help, a highly specialised task force that uses humane methods such as guns and knives to extract the valuable bone. Right now, Asian child bone can fetch almost R12 000 per kilogram on the black market. Our POACH-ers would be directly creating wealth and economic empowerment."

Henderson also noted plans to humanely remove the bone from the children's limbs.

"Now that these kids live protected in-door environments, they no longer have an evolutionary need for their bone. It isn't wrong to cut out these vestigial organs, because they don't really use them," he said.

However, the commission has come under fire from scientists and legal experts, saying that the cures are baseless and draw on a tradition of silly superstitions.

"There is nothing in an Asian child's bones that invigorates a Rhinoceros's sexual prowess," said animal scientist and game ranger Tony Veldshoen. "It's just calcium, potassium, and ossified cells, utterly devoid of any aphrodisiac qualities."

This, however, is not stopping Henderson and his team.

"Who cares if it 'isn't scientifically proven' and 'has no actual basis in biochemistry' - if makes the rhinos feel good and they can really feel the benefits!. Just because it's bull dust, doesn't mean it's bulldust. Besides," he said, "they said that same lie about rhino horn giving you a heightened libido. Next thing you'll tell us homeopathy and reflexology are just farcical cons."

BREAKING NEWS – TV showing mysterious images

BREAKING NEWS – 8:17am

There is confusion this morning, as journalists and media experts are trying to make sense of a new series of images that have just been release on our televisions.

At this moment we’re not too sure what these images are, but rest assured that we’ll be bringing in a team of specialists to try and make sense of these unfathomable photos. Details are limited right now, but the first image we’re seeing is of some large, shapeless blue mass covered in greenish blobs. Dotted all over the image are tiny cylinder-shaped things that appear to be silver and pointed, with some orange-coloured mess on one end. Again, we aren’t sure what we’re looking at – they could be tiny cigars – but we will keep you updated as this story progresses.

UPDATE – 8:27am

More breaking news on our top story this morning of the strange images covering our TV. We’re not sure if this is linked with all the other video footage of heads of state giving tearful speeches from unknown locations, but NASA has released another image, perhaps even more confounding than the first.

Again, we must stress that the meaning of these images is not clear, but it does appear that the tiny cigars have disappeared only to been replaced by smallish yellow-and-black circular plates, each surrounded by a small circle of concentric red rings. As always, we will keep you updated as this more details on this story come into public knowledge.

UPDATE – 8.33am

Back to our top story this morning, NASA and a team of scientists and researchers have released a new series of images to the public. Again, details at this time are unclear, but it appears that some kind of white face-like figure next to a number keeps flashing intermittently on our television screens. This number has steadily increased to be almost nine digits long in the course of just a few hours. In-house experts and media specialists still have no clue what these figures might mean, but what we can confirm that this is a very, very high number.

“This is perhaps one of the biggest numbers we’ve seen on TV in many, many years,” said numbers expert Matt Matison, one of the few professionals we could contact (there seems to be some kind of a problem with telephone services). “We can only assume this means some kind of big event has happened.”

Again, exact details are sketchy, and finding the meaning to these images is proving difficult as large parts of the internet seem to have gone offline, and so we will keep readers updated as this story continues to unfold.

UPDATE – 8.37am

NASA has done it again. The latest in the series of images shows what we can confirm is definitely a figure of a human being standing next to what seems to be a large grey square with a big crack in it. We’re not sure what caused the crack, or why this person is standing next to this giant square, or even what kind of grey object would be that big, but as always we will keep you updated on this news event as it unfurls.

UPDATE – 8.39am

We still have very few details on this story. At the time of going to press the government and various heads of state had not replied to requests for comment. Let us know in the comments below what you think these strange images could possibly mean. And as always, we will keep you updated.

And if no further details come to light, well, it’s not like what would be the end of the world.

China wins most beautiful sunset award

Years of hard work and extensive investment in large power plants and industrial centres have finally paid off today, after China finally cinched the international award for World’s Best Sunsets.

In a large and mandatory-attendance address given by President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China, the country humbly accepted the award, paying homage to the “thousands of hours and lives” that had gone into the decades- long project.

“It’s been a long, hard journey,” said the president, a tear (that had nothing to do with the high levels of industrial smog in the air) in his eye. “It’s cost us millions of dollars, but it’s all been worth it. I think you and your one child can agree, the sacrifice has finally paid off.”

International awards committees were unanimous in their praise for the magnificent achievement, saying that, in terms of sunsets , there was just no competition.

“It’s utterly breathtaking,” said one reviewer on the awards selection committee panel, “and I mean that both literally and figuratively. Best of all, the sunset starts at about 3pm. The improvements to God’s canvas of light have been stunning – the dense layer of dust and smoke that gives the sun its characteristic beautiful auburn glow starts almost directly overhead, making for magnificent viewing at any moment of the day. Thanks to their ceaseless efforts, there aren’t even any natural obstacles, like trees or low-flying birds, to spoil the view.”

China’s tourism industry has long boasted their twilight spectacle, which is the world’s first ever scented sunset.

“With a robust – and some might say powerfully aromatic – odour, our sunset’s metallic and chemical overtones, which are complemented by a smoky, ashy finish that lingers on the palate, are perfectly representative of the sweet, sweet smell of human and industrial progress.”

The achievement has its controversies too, however, with economists and financial experts constantly debating the issue.

“It might be the world’s most beautiful sunset,” said financial analyst Paul Fiscal, “but it’s also one of the most expensive. Many don’t know this, but China has to keep nearly four-hundred coal-fired power plants running at overcapacity every day just to keep their oranges and golds that vibrant and luminous. This is above and beyond the millions of cars and busses that fill the streets. In today’s competitive market – especially with the fact that the world’s natural weather system naturally spreads our Sunset Beautifying Agents, like Sulphur Dioxide and Heavy Metal compounds, to other countries, China is going to have to step up their game if it wants to stay competitive in a world that is slowly but surely seeing these incredible sunsets becoming more and more commonplace.”

China, however, has taken this challenge confidently.

“Even if countries are stepping up their game and ignoring the Kyoto agreement – even if they triple their Sunset Development Programs – we are confident that China will be the world leader in beautiful sunsets until the end of the world,” said Minister of Natural Development Pol Hu-shun. “Which should be for about seven years or so.”

Pics (modified): Tyvek suits from Jarek Tuszynski, Sunset from PLJ, and nuclear waste from Christian Fischer.

Asian schoolchild drops out to complete maths doctorate

Citing his inability to grasp basic concepts that his classmates have already mastered for months now, School Administrators at the Xin-Xu Juan Middle School in Beijung, China, have today announced their reluctant decision to temporarily expel eight-year-old Xiang Luan and send him on a remedial catch-up maths camp at Harvard University’s Department of Advanced Theoretical Mathematics.

“He’s been falling behind his classmates for some time now,” said class teacher Lu Shao. “It’s all that Grade 8 Master’s violin and Grandmaster Chess that he’s been spending his idle time on. If he’d focussed more, it wouldn’t have had to come to this repeating a year.

The Headmaster now hopes that the course at Harvard will help young Xiang to revise basic concepts covered in their lower grades so that he can one day re-join his classmates.

“It shouldn’t take him too long I hope,” said seven-year-old classmate Jiang Xu-bai (BSC, MA, PhD). “Hopefully we’ll see him for the start of the new year in January.”

This is just the latest in a string of controversies in the Chinese education sector. Earlier in May of this year, a scathing educational report found that over 70% of Chinese school children aged six and below had the mathematical abilities of only a 25-year-old American graduate.

“Our school system has taken a huge knock in the past couple of years,” said Chinese Minister of Education Byang Bai-Li. “Some of our middle-school entrants can’t even compete against their 28-year-old American counterparts.”

In any case, Luan’s parents say that young Xiang should graduate summa cum laude by November at least, making him eligible to go into grade 10 next year.

“We just hope that this minor setback and waste of a year redoing his childhood tutoring won’t knock his self-confidence too much.”