Raw footage from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA): The Associated Press opens its latest full news bureau in Pyongyang located inside the KCNA headquarters. more ›

A naturalised American geologist was today sentenced to 8 years in prison at Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court for attempting to obtain and traffic in state secrets over an oil industry database. more ›

The latest from ESPN.com here and here. And the latest from Google News. more ›

Is the air quality at the Beijing airport really that bad? The New York Times has the story (and some photos): more ›

Al-Jazeera: The scenes of destruction and devastation, and the smell of death. Melissa Chan wins our thumbs-up once again with this report: more ›

From Associated Press: "A group of protesters planning to protest the Olympic torch relay in Hong Kong have been barred from entering the city, local media and activists say. They were questioned at the airport and put on a flight to London." (April 27) more ›

Following up on our previous post entitled "Attack on an American volunteer by anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou, Hunan," we were contacted today by James Galvin, the unnamed American volunteer mentioned in the story which has now gone on to receive coverage by the Associated Press. In his email, Galvin provided his first-hand account of the alleged incident outside a Carrefour Sunday night in Hunan Province. He feels the story has gotten blown out of proportion. He called the initial email summary of the incident submitted to Shanghaiist by one of his fellow volunteers "sensationalist," adding the colleague "had only seen me for thirty seconds. That should have been enough to see I was not 'cut up.'" Shanghaiist ran the initial post on the incident on April 22 after receiving a copy of an official email from the volunteer organization's China field director — which spoke of a "mob mentality" and "punches" being thrown — that appeared to corroborate the initial version of events we were given. We had also seen an email from a U.S. Vice-Consul in Beijing saying she had spoken with the field director and that the Embassy was "highly concerned about what happened." We felt it was newsworthy and posted the story as a word of caution to our readers in various parts of China. We updated the story after the initial tipster contacted us again saying he was worried his account was "factually inaccurate in many ways." more ›

From AP:

The Olympic torch arrived in San Francisco for its only North American stop amid heavy security Tuesday, one day after its visit to Paris descended into chaos.

BBC: "Protests in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu turned violent as police made arrests outside the Chinese embassy."
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