A stunningly frank 21-point plan from the propaganda bureau was issued to Chinese editors and journalists and orders them to ignore hot international topics and any issues that may reflect negatively on the Olympic Games.

The blacklist comes as Chinese security forces assaulted and detained a British journalist yesterday as he was filming a pro-Tibetan rally several hundred metres from the Bird’s Nest stadium.

“Over the diplomatic ties between China and some certain nations, don’t do interviews on your own and don’t use online stories,” the instructions state.

The journalists have been told that in the event of an emergency involving foreign tourists they must follow the official line. Read more…

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ANOTHER journalist was beaten up by Chinese police today. Do the Chinese simply not understand what is going on here? Are they that removed from world affairs that they think beating up journalists is the right way to control the media and get positive press coverage? Are these people that absolutely stupid? Or do they really want to give China a bad reputation? Read more…

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VETERAN Australian shooter Russell Mark battled hard for a medal but finished fifth as a judging controversy enveloped the Olympic shooting competition yesterday.

Chinese competitor Hu Binyuan won bronze in the men’s double trap event but few in the stands could truly say he deserved it. On at least three occasions in the tense final stage, Hu was awarded a hit by the Chinese judges despite clearly missing the target.

On each occasion there seemed little doubt, the crowd stopped roaring on their compatriot and hushed as murmurs of disbelief spread through the grandstand.

The controversial judging errors - made by local judges - gifted the Chinese shooter a medal and had Mark disappointed in the aftermath.

“One of them clearly he missed,” Mark said. “I don’t think anyone out there thought he hit it. If that had have been for a gold medal, I would have been protesting.

“The referees have to be in unison but there was a lot of doubt about a lot of the shots out there today.”

Mark said he hoped the errors, each benefiting the same competitor, were by accident rather than design. “I’d hate to think that but you get the feeling out there, when someone clearly misses, all the shooters out there can tell if he missed or hit it. Everybody stopped,” he said.

“I’m glad it wasn’t for a gold medal because that is all that this Games would have been remembered for unfortunately.”

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A JAPANESE REPORTER covering the attack in East Turkistan on Chinese paramilitary has been badly beaten and held by police for 2 hours.

The reporter was simply taking pictures of the event, obviously the Chinese don’t want anyone to know what really happened or they wouldn’t need to intimidate journalists covering it.

This is just another stupid mistake made by a paranoid government.

Chinese are constantly complaining about how the foreign press only publishes bad stuff about China, well maybe if they don’t beat up the reporters they might write something nice. Just stirring the pot here!

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EAST TURKISTAN, claimed by Mao Zedong’s army in 1949, has been the site of yet another ‘terrorist’ attack in China. While I do not support terrorists killing innocent civilians, the people killed in today’s attack were far from innocent, and the attackers were far from terrorists.

In East Turkistan, the native population has decreased from 75% of the total population in 1949 to 45% in 2003. To put it bluntly, the locals are being kicked out and overrun by Han Chinese who are given incentives by the government to move into these areas and displace the local population. Read more…

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BEIJING has finally caved in to pressure from the entire western world and has unblocked a lot more websites until the Olympics are over. Reporters without borders has been unblocked for the first time since 2003, as well as a number of other international media organizations.

The naive reporters in Beijing however are hailing this as a milestone in human rights. I do not understand how unblocking a whole heap of ENGLISH websites (everything in Chinese is still blocked) for the short period of the Olympic games is going to help the human rights situation at all in China.  There is only a tiny number of Chinese who actually have the internet AND have good enough English to comprehend what these sites are saying and why it matters. Out of those people, 99% are so brainwashed that they will just think its an evil anti-China website run by the CIA, as anyone who visits Beijing and dares to talk to a local about politics will find out.

Grow up you arrogant and eccentric reporters, internet censorship for you, who are going home in a few weeks anyway, might have relaxed, but for Chinese its as bad as it ever was. You’ve been had.

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WITH 253 million people online, China now has the most internet users of any country. Well, that is if you believe the communist party, who very rarely tells the truth or gives the right numbers.

The Communist party employs a super-massive team of ‘internet police’ who patrol the web for anything critical of the party. They also have strict ‘laws’ which force ISP’s themselves to block content for fear of having their licenses revoked. Then there is the county and provincial level filters to quell local ‘problems’. As well as this Chinese citizens know they are being constantly monitored and are afraid of looking at any website critical of the government and even more afraid of saying anything. On top of this there is a phalanx of technically advanced and very expensive filters to police how its citizens use the internet.

The Great Firewall of China - or the Golden Shield Project (金盾工程 jīndùn gōngchéng), as it is officially known - is meant to prevent internet users from reading or publishing anything that criticizes the Government. Read more…

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Any banner, flag, or sign measuring more than 2m in width have been banned from the Olympic games. That means that people up the back have no way of showing their support for individual athletes or teams, signs less than 2m in width will simply not be legible from that kind of distance.

Australian Olympic swimmer Craig Stevens said: “It’s just going over the top. The rules are just getting stricter and stupider. I’m not sure who is making the rules, but it is obviously not someone who has been to an event like this before.” 

Well, all I can say is, this is China, paranoid and pathetic socialist China, if the IOC wanted a fun Olympics and a display of Olympic values, then they shouldn’t have chosen a one party socialist-fascist state to be the host. Plain and simple, black and white, obvious to pre-school students but not the IOC.

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This week, the internet in China has been more open, fast, and free than at any other time over the past 4.5 years that I’ve been here. Journalists coming for the Olympics however have been complaining that the internet is slow and heavily censored. This just shows how bad the situation really was before the Olympics (and it will go back to that situation as soon as the Olympics are over). Read more…

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A lot of Mainland Chinese are not feeling too good today after seeing their government’s choice of uniform for the Olympic team. Given, the old cobbers that still wear Mao suits will probably think they are a great leap forward but the younger generation whose minds are not completely locked up don’t agree.

The uniforms, which look like they came straight out of a McDonalds restaurant, or from ‘down on the farm’ depending on how you look at them, show the culmination of 10 years hard work by corrupt officials, their relatives who are ‘fashion designers’, and negligent citizens.

Now on a popular Chinese forum, the infamous Chinese tribal mentality has reared it’s ugly head yet again. They are hunting down the designer of the uniforms and have sworn to end his career. The big picture that they seem to be missing is that like all things in China, the designer was chosen not because he is good at designing, but because he is related someone important in the decision making process.

At least if China doesn’t win any medals they will be able to sell the uniforms to McDonalds…

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