China, Tibet: Patriotism planned at Potala Palace torch rally

From RFA’s Cantonese service. Reporter: Hai Nan. Translated by Shiny Li and Luisetta Mudie:
Authorities in Tibet are planning a mass rally of Han Chinese government supporters to support the arrival of the Olympic torch in Tibet’s iconic Potala Palace, former home of the exiled Dalai Lama.
Travel agencies in the Tibetan capital [...]

Bao Tong: Talk to the Dalai Lama

Here is Bao Tong’s essay translated in full. Original Chinese as broadcast on RFA’s Mandarin service here.
Take harmony seriously; talk to the Dalai Lama
by Bao Tong
The Lhasa incident has caused massive grief for all the Tibetan people and all of China. Anyone who has ever been through a great historical tragedy will understand its significance. [...]

Newsdesk: China bars media, foreigners from Tibetan areas

Monday, March 17, 2008
“There are about 2,000 students in the Tibetan studies department of the Central Minorities University in Beijing—about 40 of them staged a silent protest to mourn the people killed or injured in other parts of Tibet. The police came in, and they are being held now in their [...]

China: Petitioner belief prompts pre-Olympic rush on capital

There is a saying among petitioners that if your problem cannot be solved before the Olympics, it will be even harder after the Games.
- Petitioner Liu Feiyue
The strength of this belief reminds me of the mythologies and stories told by other groups in a state of severe disempowerment, like street children. These stories are used [...]

China: “Help us, journalists!”

From RFA’s Mandarin service (in Chinese): In recent days around 1,200 petitioners have penned an open letter to China’s parliament calling for greater recognition of the rights violations they say they suffered at the hands of officials.
Several hundred petitioners marched towards Gongyi East overpass Thursday hoping to meet with foreign journalists, [...]

China: Wenzhou land activists sentenced

From RFA’s Mandarin service (in Chinese):
The Dongtou County People’s Court, near the eastern coastal city of Wenzhou (marked by the beige section on the map of Zhejiang province), handed down sentences of one year and 18 months to two land activists for “assembly to cause trouble” and “obstruction of traffic”.
Zhuang Pengyou was sentenced to one [...]

China: Pollution sickens ‘thousands’ in Hunan, villagers say

Cases of poisoning have been emerging in villages around Chengxi county, Huaihua city since last week, RFA’s Cantonese and Mandarin services report. Domestic media reports have already carried interviews with villagers who complained that the pollution came from waste water from nearby vanadium mine and an associated sulphuric acid plant which had leaked into the [...]

Guangdong: Nine detained in Huizhou land clash

On the afternoon of Monday Jan 14, in the village of Qingtang, Gezhou township, Huicheng district, Huizhou city, Guangdong province:
Around 200 people went to the township government office to protest and call for the release of two villagers who had been detained by police.
A villager surnamed Lam was at the scene, and told RFA’s Cantonese [...]

China’s Pearl River Delta: 40,000 fingers lost annually, 1,000 workers strike daily

Han Dongfang, labour activist-turned-expert (and former Lamma resident), who hosts RFA’s Mandarin service programme, Labor Bulletin(ZH),  says the Pearl River Delta, China’s industrial powerhouse, sees at least one major labour dispute daily. By ‘major’, he means involving at least 1,000 people.
“My figure, unofficially, shows that strikes involving over 1,000 workers happens at least once a [...]

China: Riot at Maersk factory near Dongguan

“It is total chaos here. We don’t even know where to start,” a member of the administrative staff at Maersk Container Industri in the port of Machong, near Dongguan city.
“There are lots of broken windows. Wherever there was a piece of glass, it has now been broken,” he told RFA’s Cantonese service (ZH).
RFA’s Cantonese service [...]