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2008 Olympics begin August 8th through to August 24. Live streaming on CBC begins with the opening ceremonies early am. NBC in prime time in evening.

OMAHA, Neb., Aug. 7, 2008 – With the world’s attention focused on the Olympic Games that open tomorrow in Beijing, a former 3rd Infantry Division soldier severely wounded in Iraq is gearing up to compete in the Paralympic Games that open there Sept. 6. Former Army Spc. Scott Winkler, a 3rd Infantry Division soldier severely wounded in Iraq, has his sights set on winning gold medals in discus, shot put and javelin during the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. Defense Dept. photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Former Army Spc. Scott Winkler has his sights...

Another video out of Turkistan makes more threats against the Olympics in Beijing. Like several other previous videos from this group, this video was uploaded to YouTube. If can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sufKQ_t5NfA We are currently working on a complete translation of this video.

BEIJING - A group of American cyclists has apologized to Beijing Olympic organizers after arriving in China’s capital wearing face masks.

Two Britons arrested over Tibet flag protest in Beijing Jane Macartney and Will Pavia in Beijing Four protesters have been arrested after a Briton and an American scaled two flood-lighting poles near the centre of Beijing's tightly patrolled Olympic park this morning and unfurled banners calling for Tibetan independence. Despite intense security that had been ratcheted up further in preparation for the arrival of the Olympic torch relay in the Chinese capital today, the protesters were able to display Tibetan flags and two 140 square-foot banners beside the iconic Bird's Nest Stadium that will host the Olympics opening ceremony on...

Beijing Started to Search Passenger's Bags After Bus Explosion By Boxun Aug 1, 2008 - 2:49:29 AM On July 30, one bus of line 120 exploded in Beijing, the incident has been covered up. Source told Boxun, the explosion happened after 8pm. On July 31, workers on the bus received order to search passenger's bags. Bus line 120 passes Tiananmen, the location of explosion and damage are unkown.

Weather forecasters on Sunday predicted thunder and rain in Beijing on the day of the Olympic opening ceremony and warned that typhoons could disrupt events in other host cities. Organisers have repeatedly said rain is their biggest worry ahead of Friday's opening ceremony, which will feature more than 10,000 performers and a massive fireworks display. But top officials from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau confirmed that bad weather was certain for the August 8, although they held out hope that the skies may clear for the evening ceremony...

"Preparing for English-speaking visitors, a restaurant in China recently ran its name through an online translator, took the result, then purchased and mounted a large sign displaying the English version of their name: Translate server error." This one has been around for a couple of weeks but it's destined to become a classic. http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/then-well-grab.htmlOf all the poorly translated signs that can baffle English-speaking visitors to China, this one takes the cake for the most epic of all possible fails. And, as Dear Jane Sample notes, it’s also a good reason to invest in something more than a Web-based translator. —Posted...

BEIJING -- Normally smog plagued Beijing bathed in blue skies and sunshine on Saturday in just the sort of weather the Chinese pray will grace their Olympics and banish athletes' health fears six days before the big start. Experts attributed a rare day of fine weather in the Chinese capital to overnight rain and -- finally -- the impact of strict anti pollution measures such as ordering half the cars off the road and closing smoke-belching factories. "You see, we have done it! You can even see the mountains," enthused one Chinese student volunteer near the magnificent, newly built "Bird's...

BEIJING (AFP) - China on Thursday unveiled a string of emergency measures it was prepared to use in its battle to tame Beijing's stubborn smog ahead of the Olympics, as the city was again shrouded in haze. Chinese authorities may close more factories, further reduce the number of cars on the road in the city and neighbouring areas, and stop all construction, the ministry of environmental protection said on its website. "When there are extremely unfavourable weather conditions, there will be some emergency measures," the statement said. Beijing has already taken drastic steps to reduce pollution, amid concerns expressed from...

This is the video you weren't supposed to see... A practice run of the opening ceremony for the upcoming Beijing Olympics By News Video Wednesday, July 30, 2008 (WJNO) In what is being considered a major breach of the security apparatus surrounding the upcoming Olympic ceremonies in Beijing, China, a Korean television journalist visiting the 'Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium' secretly filmed a rehearsal of the opening ceremony. This video has been banned on most sites based in China, including Sina.com and other large web portals, and has been yanked off YouTube.com entirely. The Korean news report accompanying the video claims...

Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday... China had committed to providing media with the same freedom to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, but journalists have this week complained of finding access to sites deemed sensitive to its communist leadership blocked. "I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during Games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper said, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers. "I also now...

With only 11 days to go until the start of the Beijing Olympics, this was the smoggy scene in the Chinese capital yesterday. Visibility was down to half a mile in some parts, including the National Stadium, while the Athletes' Village complex could not be seen from the nearby Olympic Green. The city's notoriously polluted air has cast a cloud over the Games, with organisers threatening to postpone events if it is bad. City officials confidently - and possibly unwisely - predict that air quality will be good for the Games. Their efforts to curb pollution include taking half of...

The only uncensored Chinese-language TV network broadcasting in China says its satellite company has shut down its signal because of pressure from the Chinese government. The satellite company, Paris-based Eutelsat, says the signal to China was cut because of a technical problem. But New Tang Dynasty Television, an independent station with offices in 70 U.S. cities, including Palo Alto, says Eutelsat cut its signal at the request of government officials in China. NTDTV covers a number of human rights issues, including the Falun Gong spiritual movement, repression in Tibet and China's underground Christian movement. In China, news is controlled by...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's efforts to clear the skies over its polluted capital are having an effect, officials said on Friday, insisting that Beijing's air would be safe for Olympic athletes despite persistent smog over the city. Beijing authorities have taken cars off the road and opened new subway lines in the past week, in addition to halting some construction and suspending factory production, in a last-ditch effort to ensure clear skies when the Games open on August 8. "For the effects of the measures we have taken to be increasingly felt, we will have to make continued efforts," Du...

The Chinese Celebrate Their Roaring Economy, As They Struggle With Its Costs:Near Universal Optimism About Beijing Olympics As they eagerly await the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese people express extraordinary levels of satisfaction with the way things are going in their country and with their nation's economy. With more than eight-in-ten having a positive view of both, China ranks number one among 24 countries on both measures in the 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project. These findings represent a dramatic improvement in national contentment from earlier in the decade when the Chinese people were not nearly...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have arrested a prominent Internet dissident for violating his probation terms, a rights group said, as the country steps up a pre-Olympic crackdown on dissent to ensure the Games go smoothly. Du Daobin, from the central province of Hebei, was given a suspended sentence for subversion in 2004 having been detained by police in Wuhan for posting online essays in support of fellow dissident, Liu Di. Du was then released into house arrest, Reporters Without Borders said in an emailed statement, but was arrested this week having been accused of posting articles on overseas websites...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US lawmakers Wednesday accused China of reneging on a commitment to improve human rights when it won the right to host the Olympics, saying it had instead intensified a crackdown on dissent. "There were early indications that China was prepared to improve its behavior as the games approached," said Howard Berman, the Democratic head of the House of Representatives foreign affairs panel. But "the hope was short-lived, as China failed to honor these commitments," he said, citing as examples Beijing's "failed" pledges to allow greater press freedoms and improve its general human rights situation. Reporters Without Borders...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games next month despite an earlier threat to boycott over a crackdown in Tibet... Sarkozy told Chinese President Hu Jintao he would go to Beijing during a half-hour meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Eight industrialised nations summit in northern Japan. "The president confirmed to the Chinese president that he intends to go to Beijing on August 8 to take part in the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympiad,"... Sarkozy had threatened to boycott ... "The head of state consulted all of his European counterparts...

The Last Hero of Tiananmen How an aging doctor became the conscience of China. Philip P. Pan,  The New Republic  Published: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 Jiang Yanyong In the second half of 2003, Jiang Yanyong sat down to write a letter about what he had seen during the Tiananmen Square uprising and share it with the party's new leaders. Jiang had had a unique view of the massacre, and the words came easily, in a flood of suppressed memory and emotion. "I am a surgeon at the PLA No. 301 Hospital," he wrote. I was chief of the department of general...

China consumes more than double what its natural resources can supply... China uses 15 percent of the world's total biological capacity—resources such as water, land and timber... "In the next 10 to 20 years, China's consumption will likely continue to pose threats to China's own ecosystems and place increasing pressures on global biocapacity," Water and electricity are priced below their market value in China, causing it to be inefficiently used ...

Christian Dior, the French fashion brand, has become the latest global company to learn a hard lesson about the danger of offending Chinese sensitivities. Facing the possibility of a boycott of its products, the luxury company said Thursday that it had dropped the American actress Sharon Stone from its advertising in China after she suggested last week that the recent earthquakes in Sichuan Province were karmic retribution for Beijing’s treatment of Tibet.

What's wrong with this picture? Senator Hillary Clinton is urging President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in order to protest China's crackdown in occupied Tibet. At the same time, Bill Clinton's foundation takes money from a Chinese Internet company alleged to be part of the same crackdown in Tibet that Mrs. Clinton feels so strongly about. According to the Los Angeles Times, Senator Clinton's recent stern comments on China's internal crackdown collide with former President Bill Clinton's fundraising relationship with a Chinese Internet company accused of collaborating with the mainland government's censorship of...

BEIJING - Construction will halt, heavy industries will close, and even spray painting will stop in order to clean Beijing's polluted air for the Olympics — an issue that suddenly has taken a back seat to political protests. An aggressive plan to temporarily shutter belching steel and chemical plants, cut back emissions by 30 percent at 19 heavy-polluting companies and stop excavation and pouring of concrete at hundreds of sites around the city was explained Monday by the city's Environmental Protection Bureau. "From the suggestions of experts we think that we need to take these measures to guarantee the air...

BEIJING (AFP) - Olympic officials here warned world leaders wishing to snub China over its crackdown in Tibet that using the Beijing Games will only hurt their own athletes, as a top US aide said a boycott would be a "cop-out." US President George W. Bush and other leaders have come under pressure from activists to boycott at least the opening ceremony of the August extravaganza to protest at issues including Tibet and China's human rights record. China has built up the Olympics as a prestige "coming-out" party onto the world stage and would likely take a dim view of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A boycott of Olympic ceremonies by world leaders over China's crackdown in Tibet would be an evasion of responsibility and less effective than quiet diplomacy, the U.S. national security adviser said on Sunday. The remarks by White House adviser Stephen Hadley come as a challenge to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has said she will not attend the opening ceremony of this year's Beijing Olympics, and to those calling for President George W. Bush and other leaders to do the same. "I think unfortunately a lot of countries say 'well, if we say we are not going...

I find it more than odd that Obama stays silent over Beijing as everyone on the left has taken a stand on boycotting the opening ceremonies. On top of that, the world has shown its disdain for Chinese tactics in Tibet as Obama has stood on the sideline saying, "I am of two minds about this." Surely Obama and his marketing people are hard at work trying to find a nuanced way to stand against the brutality of China, while still staying away from supporting a boycott. Why, you ask? It's simple, Obama has made talking to our enemies a...

BEIJING - Crisis. Disarray. Sadness. Four months before the opening of what was supposed to be the grandest Olympics in history, the head of the International Olympic Committee is using words that convey anything but a sense of joyous enthusiasm. The protest-marred Olympic torch relay and international criticism of China's policies on Tibet, Darfur and human rights have turned the Beijing Games into one of the most politically charged in recent history and presented the IOC with one of its toughest tests since the boycott era of the 1970s and '80s. "It is a crisis, there is no doubt about...

BEIJING (AFP) - China bluntly told the world Olympics chief Thursday to keep out of politics, in a tart exchange on human rights following days of protests that have shadowed the Olympic torch around the world. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said the Games were in "crisis" following the demonstrations, and urged China to respect its pledge to improve its rights record before the event begins in August. China fired back that Rogge should keep politics out of the Olympics, which Beijing hoped would showcase its much-touted "peaceful rise" to power -- but which have instead become a public...

SINGAPORE - Beijing's heavy pollution may hurt the performances of athletes in this summer's Olympic Games, although it will not endanger their health, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Saturday. The IOC in recent months has acknowledged the possibility that athletes' performances may be affected by China's pollution. But Chinese leaders have made repeated assurances that Beijing's notorious smog will be solved before the Olympic Games begin. "The health of the athletes is absolutely not in any danger," Rogge said Saturday. "It might be that some will have to have a slightly reduced performance, but nothing will harm the...

Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher today announced the opening of the Ohio Department of Development's new international office in Beijing, People's Republic of China. The next site will cost taxpayers $50,000 a year.

Muslim extremists attempt uprising in western China: government 57 minutes ago China has accused Muslim extremists in the nation's northwest of trying to start a rebellion, an incident that an exile group said Wednesday was mainly a women's protest against Chinese rule. According to a statement from the Khotan government in the Uighur Muslim dominated Xinjiang region, extremist forces tried to incite an uprising in a local marketplace on March 23. "A small number of elements... tried to incite splittism, create disturbances in the market place and even trick the masses into an uprising," the statement said. The statement said...

Guns, drugs, explosives, and poisonous and radioactive materials will be banned from Beijing's Olympic venues, a security official said yesterday. Animals, drinks, radio equipment, and banners and oversized flags will also be prohibited, but guide dogs and small flags on poles shorter than 1m will be allowed, Zhu Yijun, from the Beijing Olympic security command center, said at a press conference to announce the new security regulation. Drinks are banned to remove the risk of spectators throwing containers, while radio equipment makes the no-go list as it may disturb TV broadcasts and the operation of security equipment, he said. Banners...

BEIJING - China might bar live television broadcasts from Tiananmen Square during the Beijing Olympics, apparently unnerved by the recent outburst of unrest among Tibetans and fearful of protests in the heart of the Chinese capital. A ban on live broadcasts would wreck the plans of NBC and other major international networks, who have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcast the Aug. 8-24 games and are counting on eye-pleasing live shots from the iconic square. The rethinking of Beijing's earlier promise to broadcasters comes as the government has poured troops into Tibetan areas wracked by anti-government protests this...

President Bush has no choice but to cancel his trip to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. No doubt, the president will resist this inevitability, as cancellation would sour U.S.-China relations. Mr. Bush cannot stand on Chinese soil without making a mockery of the freedom agenda. The repression in Tibet is just the latest evidence. What began as a series of peaceful protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on March 10 has devolved into a series of pitched street battles and house-to-house searches. Chinese troops have exacted retribution against ethnic Tibetans after the latter attacked shops and businesses owned or...

Signs of panic over 'Chinglish' in Beijing By Aislinn Simpson Last Updated: 7:38am GMT 19/03/2008 For years, badly translated signs have had the Englishman abroad in stitches. But for tourism officials in Beijing, a city preparing for the arrival of millions of visitors for the Olympic Games in August, the problem is far from funny. In pictures: 'Chinglish' signs in Beijing The Beijing Municipal Tourism Bureau has hired English linguists to eradicate "Chinglish" from signs and shop fronts. It has also instructed the city's 4,000 unrated hotels to translate their names, service hours, room rates, menus and notices into accurate...

Moscow, March 18 (RIA Novosti) Russia has said that the recent violence in Tibet is linked with the recognition by some states of the independence of Serbia's breakaway province, Kosovo. In an interview published Tuesday in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the recognition of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence by many countries, including the US and the majority of the European Union (EU) states, had 'already reverberated in many regions.' He said that the Kosovo issue was linked to recent riots in Tibet and demands for greater autonomy by ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. 'There are...

Air pollution in Beijing reached its highest level on Tuesday as a sandstorm from the north shrouded the capital in dust, choking pedestrians and delaying flights, the government and reports said. Air pollution measured between levels four and five at monitoring stations throughout the capital, according to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau's website. Level five represents the worst air quality under the bureau's monitoring system and automatically triggers warnings for people to stay indoors and refrain from outdoor activities. "Preparations must be made to guard against the sandstorms, close doors and windows, wear face masks and carry tissue to avoid...

Beijing events could be postponed in case of heavy pollution: IOC Monday • March 17, 2008 The International Olympic Committee said Monday that it would set up a special panel to recommend the postponement of events at the Beijing Olympics in case of heavy pollution. IOC Medical Commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, announcing the IOC's own analysis of air quality data for Beijing, said that the body would be formed with representatives from his commission and from sports federations. "We have to have a mechanism in place to provide the coordination commission with the facts," he said, referring to the IOC...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Ethnic Tibetan students staged a candle-lit vigil in Beijing on Monday, saying it was to pray for the dead, after authorities warned anti-Chinese rioters in the Tibetan capital to surrender. Police kept reporters well away from the peaceful protest by dozens of apparently ethnic Tibetan students gathered inside the Central University for Nationalities. It was a small, rare show of defiance in the host city of this year's Olympic Games, where Communist Party authorities are especially eager to prevent public shows of dissent. "It was only to pray for the souls of the dead," said an ethnic...

BERLIN (AFP) - International Olympic Committee vice-president Thomas Bach said a number of top athletes were considering boycotting the games in China over the bloody crackdown on protesters in Tibet. Bach told Bild am Sonntag newspaper he understood the athletes' concerns about the situation in Tibet but said he was advising them to participate. "They will realise when they assess the situation that it is better to make an appearance than to stay away. That is a symbol that will be noticed by the public," he said. Asked if human rights had been a concern when Beijing was selected to...

(BEIJING) -- After decades of destruction of ancient landmarks and centuries-old homes, a new movement is taking hold in China: historic preservation. China's northern metropolis, Harbin, is working to save early 20th-century, Russian-influenced stone and wood buildings, repointing brickwork and reaffixing frieze-work facades. Taicheng, a small city in the Guangdong province, is restoring old family dwellings and ancestral temples. In response to citizen pressure, Jinan, a sprawling agricultural center on the North China Plains, has preserved 18th-century waterfront pavilions and one-story buildings, previously scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt in a pseudo-ancient style. The newfound interest in preservation is...

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge poured cold water Saturday on calls for a boycott of the Summer Games in Beijing over China's crackdown in Tibet, saying it would only hurt athletes. "We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Rogge told reporters on this Caribbean island. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing."

Looking at images of the 1936 Nazi olympics we can't help but ask ourselves what they were thinking. Today we have a similar situation brewing with the 2008 communist Olympics in Beijing. A land where christians are persecuted, democracy protesters are crushed with tanks and tibetans are ethnically cleansed. They have been awarded the olympics what can we do about it? Do you want your kids and grandkids to see pictures like this and ask what you did to oppose it? It's beginning:Britain kow tows to China as athletes are forced to sign no criticism contracts China has no freedom...

Having troops in Iraq or being strong supporters of Israel are the only reasons Islamic terrorists attack people, right? So, how exactly do Democrats and other assorted morons explain this? Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the far western region of Xinjiang, said materials seized in a Jan. 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, suggested the plotters' planned "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics." …Wang said the group had been trained by and was following the orders of a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or...

(BEIJING) - Chinese police killed alleged terrorists plotting to attack the Beijing Olympics, while a flight crew managed to prevent an apparent attempt to crash a Chinese jetliner in a separate case just last week, officials said Sunday. Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the western region of Xinjiang, said materials seized in a January raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, had described a plot with a purpose "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics." "Their goal was very clear," Wang told reporters in Beijing. Wang cited no other evidence and earlier reports on the raid...

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games. Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around. Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city. The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of...

Experts: Slim chance of Olympic heatwave (China Daily/Xinhua) Updated: 2008-02-25 07:17 The possibility of Beijing experiencing temperatures above 35 C during the Olympic Games is a mere 0.4 percent, said the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, forecasting an average temperature of 24.9 C in August. Guo Liwen, head of the bureau's climate center said Beijing had an average temperature of 24.9 C in August over the past 30 years, relatively pleasant weather for the athletes. He noted that there is no need to worry about the hot weather, adding that foreign media reports claiming that 29.8 C was the average August Beijing...

Spectators warn of chaos at Beijing Olympics By Richard Spencer in Beijing Last Updated: 2:02am GMT 22/02/2008 Foreign spectators at a key test event for the Beijing Olympics have questioned the city's readiness to host the Games in August. Visitors from Britain, the Netherlands and elsewhere attending the event said the ticket allocation system broke down, officials excluded them from events arbitrarily and few allowances were made for disabled people. There was chaos yesterday at the entrance to the World Diving championships in the "Water Cube", the showpiece swimming venue. Long queues formed as scores of touts offered tickets at...

Spielberg ‘breached Olympic spirit’ By Mure Dickie in Beijing Published: February 14 2008 20:33 | Last updated: February 15 2008 01:35 Organisers of the Beijing Olympics denounced any linking of sport and politics as a contravention of the “Olympic spirit” on Thursday following the resignation of Steven Spielberg, the US film director, as an artistic adviser on the games’ opening and closing ceremonies. In spite of its insistence on keeping politics out of sport, the Olympics organising committee (Bocog) joined the foreign ministry in defending China’s stance on Darfur, which had been cited by Mr Spielberg as the reason for...