Blogs / Interesting Times

BEIJING, July 5 -- Envoys for the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, said Saturday that their meetings with Chinese officials last week were so disappointing that they could not even get the Chinese to agree to issue a joint statement committing both sides to further talks. …

BEIJING — First there was the freak snowstorm in February. Then the Tibetan riots in March. Then in rapid succession the controversial torch relay, Sichuan earthquake, widespread flooding and an algae bloom that's tarnishing the Olympic sailing venue. Just when it seemed that nothing else could go wrong this year in China, the locusts arrived. …

To slip past Internet censors squashing reports of a weekend riot in China's Guizhou province, some bloggers have started writing backward. Some 30,000 rioters set fire to government buildings over the weekend to protest the way authorities handled the death of a teenager in the province's Weng'an County. …

rights dialogue with China that has been frozen since 2002. The talks come a few months before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in August and weeks after deadly riots in Tibet and the subsequent security crackdown that drew international criticism. Interesting Times World Press Freedom Committee - a blog dedicated to monitoring the Chinese authorities' attempts to censor or restrict access to the Internet, and other efforts to curtail freedom of the press and freedom of expression.