Manuela Parrino, an Italian woman who has lived in Beijing for the last 41/2 years said she was "fed up with all the visiting journalists talking negatively about China." She decided to prove China's commitment to free speech during the Olympic Games by applying to protest against pollution, with her 4 year old son, in one of the designated zones. After 9 hours, over 2 days, of officials trying to dissuade her cause, and parrying......

In this video Al Jazeera reports on two elderly Beijing residents who tried to organize protests against evictions in the capital. For these women, who are both in their 70s, this has had far reaching consequences.......

Hua Guofeng, the man to whom Chairman Mao was supposed to have said before his death, "With you in charge I'm at ease", and who ruled China briefly before slipping into obscurity when Deng Xiaopeng took over has died at the age of 87. In the early days, Hua was widely credited with the downfall of the Gang of Four but that all changed after Deng took over.An earlier report by The Times (UK) that......

A small group of Tibet activists held a small demonstration at the entrance of the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park not far from the Olympic stadium yesterday around 12.30pm. According to Austin Ramzy of TIME Magazine who was there on site, the demonstration was "hardly a blockbuster". He described the protest as follows:The first attempt at unfurling a banner on the overpass was apparently a diversionary tactic, so the other demonstrators could barricade themselves behind a......

You may have heard of the three official protest areas that Beijing set aside for pre-authorized demonstrations during the period of the Olympics. According to The Australian, these "protest pens" have been of little use, since — so far — no protests have been allowed.......

WSJ: Olympic protestor VS Patriotic youth MSNBC: Parents of quake victims in Sichuan still in shock NTDTV: Sun Village, on the outskirts of Beijing, is home to over 100 abandoned children who have been orphans of men and women executed by the state or are currently in jail.......

Al-Jazeera: 70 year old Beijing resident He Linyuan has taken close to 10,000 photographs of the Bird's Nest Al-Jazeera: Dan Nolan reports from the Danjiangkou reservoir in Hubei province on the government's controversial and costly engineering project to transfer water from south to north to feed the Chinese capital. AP: The mother and sisters of Michael Phelps on his chances at the Beijing Olympics......

On Monday, Beijing residents gathered at Qianmen Dajie, in Chongwen District, to demonstrate against forced evictions and the demolishing of houses in this area. Their claims, however, are dismissed by the state-owned People's Daily, which quotes an interview with Zhong Yongming, deputy chief of the Chongwen District Government: "96 percent of the residents who used to live in the old Qianmen area, featuring poor public works, serious safety problems and dilapidated housing, were pleased with......

Tibetan poet Woeser, called "the poet who forgot to be afraid," speaks out against the Chinese government's repression of human rights in this short clip by Al Jazeera English. According to Al Jazeera, during "crackdowns" on Tibetan dissidents in March, Woeser's Internet blogs were among the few sources of information from the sealed-off region. She is now prohibited from leaving the country; Chinese officials refuse to issue her a passport. She is not allowed......

The state-owned asset regulators are now considering a merger of China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines, broke the Caijing magazine yesterday, saying the discussion was only among government agencies so far, while spokesmen with the two airlines pled ignorance of any such plans. Great hopes ahead for improved competitiveness in China's aviation sector.2004 bronze medalist Kendra Zanotto, who was set to work as an expert synchronized swimming reporter for the Olympic News Service, an official arm......

Several thousand rioters have gathered in Guizhou's Weng'an County, torched a police station, ransacked government buildings and overturned police cars, after allegations of a cover-up over a 15 year old girl's death blew up. Ming Pao reports the son of the county's vice-deputy mayor had raped and murdered the girl along with another youth and tossed her body into the Ximen River. Police only detained the suspects for five hours and released them without charge.......

With the upcoming Olympics and the subsequent global attention, the government obviously wants the nation to look its best, which in China sometimes translates to quashing dissent. Two European-based human rights groups working together as the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders recently published a report declaring that the government has stepped up attempts to quiet dissidents, citing four people arrested for Olympic Games protests, including Hu Jia, who was sentenced to three......

Way back in 1925, during the heyday of foreign imperialism in Shanghai, discontent was fomenting among the local populace over what were generally considered to be unfair privileges granted to foreigners and Chinese exclusion from the governing Shanghai Municipal Council. The deals the foreign powers had struck up with Manchu officials in the 19th century, suspect from the beginning, had little official legitimacy after the fall of the Qing more than ten years earlier. Tensions......

You've probably been on the edge of your seat waiting for the latest Olympic torch relay news so here it is. The beleagured sacred flame is making its way through Hong Kong today at the start of its tour of China following a few, shall we say, hiccups during the international relay. Despite the rain, the torch route has been mostly been lined with supporters throughout, many hoping to catch a glimpse of the flame......

Depending on where you read your news, the nation-wide boycott of, and protests against, French supermarket chain Carrefour in China were either a well-attended show of nationalistic pride or were over-shadowed by the bargains on offer inside the stores. Angered by events surrounding the Olympic torch relay in Paris last month and by President Sarkozy declining to rule out a boycott of the games in Beijing in August, the protests had been arranged through on-line......

Taikang Lu has developed rapidly in the last few months — expanding from the original alleyway into a sprawling collection of labyrinthine lanes populated by galleries, arty shops, and some great restaurants. However, the revitalisation of Taikang Lu hasn't been welcomed by everyone. Yesterday, on a gloriously sunny afternoon that saw large numbers of people flock to the area, some local residents decided to voice their dissent against the ongoing development. Three white and blue......

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.......

Al Jazeera: "Transformed from being the land of bicycles into a land of cars, China's booming economy is driving up demand at a time when car sales are slow elsewhere in the world. Al Jazeera's Tony Cheng visited the Beijing motor show which showed much promise in making China the future of the automotive industry." Al Jazeera: "More than 80,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in China last year, making the country's roads the......

READ THIS: Volunteer in China: "I was not in fact attacked by a mob" Editor's note: This post has been updated. Details after the jump. Here's an email we received from a volunteer teacher from an Ivy League university volunteer programme in Hunan Province (who shall remain unnamed to protect the identities of everyone involved) — a chilling account of an attack on his colleague by an anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou. The matter has been......

Danwei informs us that Carrefour.com.cn is currently "undergoing a website update and maintenance", but CarrefourS.com.cn is alive and hopping with nationalist messages and other "user-generated propaganda". Crazy times.......

Protests, protests everywhere — in Europe, within China, and all across the United States. Quite frankly, we can barely catch up with it all. Watch protestors shout "CNN liar! Cafferty fire!" in this video of the anti-CNN demonstration which took place outside CNN's studios in downtown LA that we told you about earlier. [h/t to Danwei] Related links Photos: Chinese students show their love for the motherland at Place de la République in Paris Anti-French,......

Photos from Hélène Franchineau Shanghaiist's Paris correspondent Hélène Franchineau brings us these photos of a demonstration conducted by the Chinese student community there on Saturday in protest against the western media's biased reporting of events within China. On the same day, similar protests were conducted by the Chinese community across the United States. The anti-CNN demonstration which took place outside CNN's studios in downtown Los Angeles attracted "thousands of Chinese Americans and overseas Chinese"......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/microsoft/L_China_Nationalists_on_MSN_Messenger_heart_China'; Like Wang Jianshuo and Eric Hu, we were pretty surprised to see that this is what our MSN messenger looks like at the moment. Says Eric:Over half of my Chinese-Chinese friends on MSN have put the badge on their contact names, in defiance of all the anti-China bullying that they’re undoubtedly reading about in the Chinese newspapers, watching on the Chinese news, and scouring over on the hundreds of blogs and......

A Chinese student at Duke University seen by other Chinese students taking part in a Free Tibet demonstration (see video on the right) now has her pictures, US phone number, Chinese identity card number, parent's address and home number in China splashed all over the internet as a "human flesh search engine" ensues, writes John Kennedy of Global Voices. The Tibetan protestor who tried to snatch the torch away from Chinese paralympian Jin Jing in......

They did it last month, and they did it again this time. A second trip organised by Beijing for a closed group of journalists (from Reuters, ABC News, and France's Le Point, among others) to Xiahe, Gansu, has been disrupted by a group of between 15 and 30 young monks who burst out of a building at the L*br*ng Monastery, demanding for human rights, freedom and the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet. From The......

Ahead of his first visit to China as prime minister of Australia, books on Kevin Rudd are selling like hot cakes in book stores everywhere. Speaking in Mandarin to students at Peking University yesterday, Rudd pointed out to "significant" human rights problems in Tibet, but reiterated his opposition to an Olympic boycott:"Australia, like most other countries, recognises Chinese sovereignty over Tibet but we also believe it is necessary to recognise there are significant human rights......

Anti-CNN.com, a website set up to protest the Western media's "distortion" of recent events in Tibet, has been hacked according to The Dark Visitor. There's a clue in the name as to what anti-CNN.com is all about but, in case you haven't heard of it, here's how they define themselves:This website is estabished to expose the lies and distortions in the western media. The site is maintained by volunteers, who are not associated with any......

And here's an assortment of pictures that will give you a good sense of what we saw and experienced: Photos by Hélène Franchineau UPDATE, 02:32: The torch has been extinguished a third time. UPDATE 2, 02:48: This raw video of the protest just in from AP:......

Editor's note: Former Shanghaiist contributor Hélène Franchineau was present at the Olympic torch relay in Paris earlier today and tells us of what she saw and heard. Today at 12:35pm Paris time, the Olympic torch left from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. It was supposed to travel through the capital for 28 km along the Champs Elysées, the City Hall and the Louvre to end its journey at 5pm in front of the......

UPDATE, 20:21: The flame has just been extinguished for a second time amid protests in Paris. Following an earlier disturbance along the banks of the Seine, the flame had been extinguished by officials and put aboard a bus to avoid further protests. The torch was then re-lit and the relay restarted but the procession was again halted and officials once again extinguished the flame and boarded a bus. More to follow shortly... UPDATE, 19:17:......