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Led Zeppelin guiltarist Jimmy Page performs "Whole Lotta Love" with Leona Lewis at the closing ceremonies.

China's tough Xinjiang policy backfires By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - China's success in eliminating clusters of Muslim insurgencies in the western province of Xinjiang may have pushed an alleged separatist movement across the border into Pakistan and Afghanistan, exposing it to greater influences by jihadi groups in those countries. With the Beijing Summer Olympic Games well underway, the Muslim majority province of Xinjiang has seen a spate of deadly attacks on government establishments and security personnel. Three violent incidents over the past 10 days have been interspersed with the release of two videos threatening the Olympics. In the latest assault,...

via translation- ALERT - An American tourist killed by a Chinese in Beijing BEIJING - An American tourist was killed Saturday in Beijing by Chinese who then committed suicide in the aftermath of the early Olympic Games, announced the China New Agency.

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.

Beijing was finally experiencing clear skies today after city authorities apparently used seeding technology to disperse the smog. The report came as a strong 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the western Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Gansu today, near the site of May's devastating quake that killed at least 70,000 people, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

via translation- ALERT - China: 16 customs officers killed and 16 wounded in an attack in Xinjiang BEIJING - Sixteen customs officers were killed and sixteen others injured Monday morning when the attack on their post in Xinjiang, Muslim region of northwestern China, according to the China New Agency.

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Uighur group claims China bus attacks, threatens Olympics Sat Jul 26, 3:14 AM ET A Uighur separatist group has taken credit for a deadly bus bombing in Shanghai in May and warned of new attacks in China during the Olympics, a group monitoring threats by extremists on the Internet said. In a video statement, Commander Seyfullah of the Turkestan Islamic Party claimed credit for several attacks, including the May 5 Shanghai bus bombing which killed three; another Shanghai attack; an attack on police in Wenzhou on July 17 using an explosive-laden tractor; a bombing of a Guangzhou plastic factory on...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

You're not the only one unhappy about the Olympic mascots, collectively known as the Fuwa. If the Beijing Olympics' five cuddly mascots go down in history as a dud, their creator wants no part of the blame. After China's Olympics organizers gave him the assignment, folk artist Han Meilin initially sketched out five children representing the traditional Chinese elements of fire, wood, water, gold and earth. Then the bureaucrats got involved. "There had to be a panda, even though you'd think the public would have had enough of them," says the 72-year-old artist. Alas, mankind will never get enough of...

Beijing's forthcoming Olympic Games does not appear to be drawing as many people to the capital as expected this year. Figures show the number of international tourists visiting the Chinese capital fell by more than 14% in May compared to the year before. Officials had hoped the Olympics would help attract increasing numbers of foreign tourists to Beijing throughout the year and beyond. But tougher visa requirements, and concerns that officials are more worried about security than organising a party, appears to have dampened demand. Figures from the Beijing Tourism Bureau show there were far fewer visitors from Japan, South...

I was evicted because of security clampdown for the Beijing Olympics Jane Macartney in Beijing I will miss the tree-lined alley in the heart of Beijing that has been my home for three years. But the security clampdown for the Beijing Olympics has edged into even this narrow lane. It was always clear that the Olympics would disrupt the lives of the people of Beijing, that security would be intense and the rules and regulations deeply intrusive. But it's always a surprise when this happens to you. The underlying factor in all this is fear. Fear pervades the system in...

China's "Live" Olympic Broadcast Will Be Delayed 10 Seconds to Avoid Airing any Embarrassing Political Episodes By chinafreepress.org Jul 8, 2008 - 11:41:36 PM To avoid broadcasting any undesirable incident, China's government has instituted a 10-second delay on the "live" broadcast of the Olympics. According to sources, the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party has ordered all regional television stations to implement a 10 second delay on their "live" Olympic broadcast. This delay order is meant to protect against any political protest--whether shouting a slogan or unveiling a banner--being broadcast, including any by foreign athletes in competition or...

BEIJING: Chinese authorities have replaced top police and security officials in the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province, which is the hotbed of separatism and political violence. They have also closed down 41 "illegal" places of worship.These places of worship were used as training ground for conducting a "holy war", Chen Zhuangwei Chen, the police chief of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province, said. Xinjiang, which borders central Asia and Pakistan, has been the scene of a pro-independence movement by a section of the eight million Uighurs living there for a long time. The authorities also announced they have detained 82 "suspected terrorists"...

July 04, 2008 Members of China’s armed police demonstrate a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, east China on Wednesday, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. [AP/XINHUA]

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 brought to the attention of the US Embassy in Beijing and should serve as a warning to all Caucasian readers, particularly those living in second-tier cities, to avoid large crowd gatherings at all costs during these crazy, crazy times. Our foreign correspondent friends in Shanghai and Beijing have been receiving...

China "regrets" U.S. decision on food supplies By Lindsay Beck Thu Feb 21, 2:03 AM ET China expressed regret on Thursday at reports the U.S. Olympic team would bring its own meat for the Beijing Games over concerns of drugs tainted food, and said it could guarantee safe supplies. The New York Times has reported that the U.S. Olympic Committee has arranged with sponsors to ship 25,000 pounds of lean protein to Beijing for the Games, in response to concerns about the potential impact of veterinary drugs and insecticides on athletes. "I personally feel rather regretful," Kang Yi, head of...

THE son of Hitler’s favourite architect, who was ordered by the Führer to turn Berlin into the greatest city in the world, has designed a key route to the Beijing Olympic site. Albert Speer Jr, who was born a year after Hitler came to power, was recruited by the Chinese authorities as lead designer on the huge architectural project to redesign the sprawling city ahead of the 2008 Games. Their choice has stirred ghosts from the past. More than 70 years ago Speer’s father, dubbed the “Devil’s Architect”, was charged with a similar task of rebuilding the Reich capital and...

In the first of a series of features to mark one year to go before the Beijing Olympics, the BBC's Michael Bristow finds China determined to win gold on home soil. The school is training some of China's best young sporting talent At Beijing's Shichahai Sports School, children as young as six are training hard to be the Olympic stars of tomorrow. Along with several thousand others, the school is part of a sports machine that aims to bring glory to China through sporting success. And success comes no more glorious than the Olympic Games, to be held in...

China has unveiled the symbol that is to be used in the 29th Olympic Games in 2008, entitled "Dancing Beijing". The logo - showing an athlete running to victory against a red backdrop - was revealed in a spectacular ceremony attended by 2,008 of China's national Government and regional officials. Wang Qishan, a Beijing Communist Party chief, and Hein Verbruggen of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) drew a stamp from the last of a number of boxes and impressed the design on paper. Winner of about 2,000 internationally submitted designs, the character also has a second meaning - it...