不是“爱来不来”，而是根本“不欢迎你来”！ ~ It's not 'Come if you want,' it's basically 'You're not welcome." That's the response of Chinese netizens to French President Sarkozy who said he will decide next week whether to attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics, with his choice depending on how talks go between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's envoys this week. Sarkozy reiterated Monday that the events in Tibet were "not acceptable," but he also warned against angering a power......

The Shaanxi Province government confirmed yesterday that photographs of the highly endangered South China tiger taken by farmer Zhou Zhenglong were fake. Thirteen government officials have been punished (China Daily reports them being reprimanded, given demerit points or fired) for promoting the photographs in an effort to boost local tourism. Zhou was arrested for alleged fraud and ordered to return his award of 20,000 yuan for his "discovery" of the tiger. Shi Ying, deputy head......

A letter from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued on Wednesday warned the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) to keep politics separate from sports. The letter was issued after the IOC read the remarks of Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s Chinese Communist party secretary, at a torch relay in Lhasa. "Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it," Qingli said, adding: "We will certainly......

At this point, this is only an unsubstantiated rumour but a highly plausible one given what we've seen and heard in the last few months. Here is an email sent to us by one teacher at an international school in Shanghai, and we quote verbatim: "I don't know anymore specifics, but I received an Email from my principal warning us about our online behaviour after an international school teacher was deported from China. I don't......

Less than a month after airing this commercial featuring Richard Gere driving the new Fiat Delta from Hollywood to Tibet, Italian automaker Fiat has been forced to withdraw the ad, and issue a statement extending its "apologies to the Government of the People's Republic of China and to the Chinese people". Readers of this blog (a group which no doubt excludes anyone from Fiat or their agency) will be aware that Richard Gere is a......

The Olympic torch moves today to Qinghai Lake in the Northwestern province of Qinghai, after making a one-day cameo in Lhasa. The Saturday visit to the Tibetan capital was carefully monitored in light of March’s uprising, and tight security continues in the province that was another sight of spring unrest. As the torch makes its way through China’s heavily-minority sections, several pieces of interesting news and commentary have surfaced covering the situations of various ethnic......

China releases 1,157 involved in Tibet unrest [Channel NewsAsia] “BEIJING - China has released a total of 1,157 people who were involved in riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March, the official Xinhua news agency reported Friday, quoting a senior Tibetan official.”Opening the flood gates: airlines allowed to fly between China and Taiwan [flightglobal.com] “In a long-awaited political breakthrough, Chinese and Taiwanese carriers will receive a much needed boost with the launch early next......

The last installment of Al Jazeera's series on China in the program People and Power investigates the Lhasa Express, the 4000 km train line linking Beijing with Lhasa. Exclusive interviews with members of the Tibetan government in exile and recently escaped Tibetan prisoners echo the familiar refrain that the Chinese government is encouraging a massive influx of Han Chinese to Tibet, but zero coverage of the flip side. In other Tibet-related news: Bloomberg: Acting......

Cara Anna of the AP reports police dragged away over 100 parents protesting outside the courthouse in Dujiangyan (都江堰) holding pictures of their children who died in the Sichuan earthquake:"Why?" some of them yelled. "Tell us something," they said as black-suited police wearing riot helmets yanked at them. The parents had been kneeling in front of the courthouse yelling, "We want to sue." Police dragged an Associated Press reporter and two photographers who were......

Looks like mammon does have its way of making people think before they talk. Less than a day after Sharon Stone suggested at the Cannes Film Festival that the Sichuan earthquake was karma for China's treatment of the Tibetans, she has been forced to eat back her words and apologise:"My erroneous words and deeds angered and saddened the Chinese people, and I sincerely apologise for this. I'm willing to participate in any earthquake relief activity......

Has Sharon Stone been drinking too much lately? You be the judge. Here's what she said on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival when asked about the earthquake that has devastated the Sichuan Province:Well you know it was very interesting because at first, you know, I am not happy about the ways the Chinese were treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I have been......

In this weekend's edition of Opinionist, we present to you the China-relevant portions of Lee Kuan Yew's latest interview with Haslinda Amin of Bloomberg News. At 84 this year, Lee was Singapore's first Prime Minister and current Minister Mentor. In this excerpt, Lee gives his take on recent anti-Chinese sentiment, China's challenges going forward and what China can learn from Singapore in handling the Western media. The full transcript (PDF) of the interview can be......

Listening to the ever-excellent Football Weekly podcast from Guardian Unlimited the other day, we stumbled across the story of the Tibetan "national" team playing against Padania this week in Milan. If you're thinking "how can Tibet have a national team?" or "what the hell is a Padania?" then you've clearly never heard of the Viva World Cup. Frankly, you probably wouldn't be the only one. The Viva World Cup is a football (or soccer, if......

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......

This just in from the AP:The Chinese government plans to meet with a private representative of the Dalai Lama in the coming days, state-run media reported, after weeks of pressure from world leaders. The official Xinhua News Agency said it had learned of the development "from official sources." It quoted an unnamed official as saying there had been requests repeatedly made by "the Dalai side for resuming talks." The BBC said that the Dalai Lama's......

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.......

Hot off the press: a CNN-affiliated website The Sports Network (also http://sport.si.cnn.com) has just been hacked by a group called HackCNN, and this was the message placed by the hackers on the website: The Sports Network seems to have regained control of the website in the meanwhile, and here is the message we now find on their homepage:Please Note The Sports Network website and other major news sites have been hacked by a political entity......

From Mutantpalm.org comes a post about a Ming Pao report about a BBS posting (!) in which it was stated that some black-suit clad Freetibetters came into the subway and began playing tapes that advocated, well, you can guess what. This blog says the same thing. The four men got on on Line 2's Lujiazui and started playing the recordings and then got off. That blog post also mentions that security is a bit tighter......

By Benjamin Cohen "I Love Tibet, but I Hate the Dalai Lama," and "F*** CNN, Say No to Riots!" are two of the nine nationalist t-shirts for sale on Taobao.com (english version). The shirt's creators state, "Tibet was, is and always will be apart of China!" We're pretty sure they mean "a part" (h/t to Megan Shank). But semantics aside, these shirts show growing nationalist sentiment that first gained ground with MSN messenger displays of......

Photo from Asian Offbeat. The above Coca Cola ad image used in the window of a shop in Bremen, Germany, which features Tibetan monks with the caption "Make it real" has come under the spotlight lately, as Chinese netizens question if the company supports Tibetan independence. From Guardian Unlimited:First Tibetan exile groups attacked Coca-Cola for sponsoring the Olympic torch relay. Now the soft drink company is under fire from the other side of the......

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......

She's just jealous Baidu didn't choose her. From ESPN.com: "The violent clashes in Tibet and the failure of the Chinese government to use its full leverage with Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur are opportunities for Presidential leadership," Clinton said in a statement. "These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China. At this time, and in light of recent events, I......

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:......

Scanning The Independent the other day, we came across a piece about a gloriously named singer called 萨顶顶 (Sa Ding Ding) that caught our eye. Born to a Mongolian mother and Han Chinese father, the article calls her a 'former Mongolian nomad' who is 'poised to sweep the globe' with her blend of traditional folk sounds and dance music. Intrigued, we had a hunt on Baidu's ever-reliable MP3 search engine (not that Shanghaiist condones illegal......

A protestor is wrestled to the ground after attempting to extinguish the Olympic flame in London. Photo from Andrew Gill Unsurprisingly, given recent events, there have been huge problems with the London leg of the Olympic torch relay in the UK today. Despite the Metropolitan Police launching a huge operation to try and safeguard the flame's path The Guardian reports that there has been a string of major disruptions to the relay:A Free Tibet......