Last month's earthquake diverted world attention from China's troubles in Tibet, but protests and arrests have continued in the region and the leadership has been girding for more trouble. Since the May 12 quake that killed about 70 000 people, more than 80 Buddhist nuns and a dozen monks have been detained.
A New York-based human rights watchdog urged China on Tuesday to honour its commitment to improve its rights record before the Beijing Olympics by freeing some 130 Tiananmen-era prisoners. Human Rights Watch made the call on the eve of the 19th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army's crushing of student-led demonstrations.
Parents, grieving and angry at the deaths of their children under a collapsed school, kept a poignant vigil at the ruins of the building on Tuesday, demanding that those responsible be brought to justice. In the tiny farming town of Wufu, nearly every building withstood the May 12 earthquake -- except the three-storey Fuxin Number Two Primary School.
Engineers have completed work to drain a lake formed by last month's earthquake that had threatened to inundate towns downstream and add to the toll of China's deadliest natural disaster in more than 30 years. Authorities have evacuated 197 000 people from areas at risk of flooding and drawn up contingency plans.
The rescue of 40 half-starved people from a remote village 16 days after China's earthquake provided a rare piece of good news on Thursday as rain threatened more misery for millions of survivors. A military helicopter plucked the villagers from their quake-shattered mountain homes on Wednesday.
China vowed on Wednesday to deal severely with anyone found responsible for shoddy state building work, as parents demanded to know why last week's quake destroyed so many schools, killing thousands of children. Nine days after the massive tremor hit the mountainous Sichuan province in south-western China, rescuers were still finding survivors.
Earthquake's don't destroy strong, well-built buildings. They destroy weak ones. As China reels from its biggest earthquake in 30 years, public anger is mounting. The danger for the Communist government is obvious. China is earthquake prone, Sichuan in particular experiencing a similar scale earthquake in 1933.
The death toll from China's massive earthquake rose to at least 20 000 on Thursday as rescuers struggled to help survivors and hopes faded for a further 25 000 buried under rubble for more than three days. Three days after the quake, hopes of pulling survivors from the ruins dimmed.
Heavy rainfall and wrecked roads hampered rescuers' efforts to reach the areas hardest-hit by China's worst earthquake in three decades on Tuesday as the death toll rose to nearly 10 000. State media reports indicated that the number of dead was likely to soar, with Xinhua saying 10 000 people remained buried in the Mianzhu area of Sichuan province.
A new railway line being built as part of an upgrade ahead of the Beijing Olympics was a factor in a train crash that left 71 people dead in east China, officials and state press said on Wednesday. The pre-dawn crash near Zibo city on Monday, which also left more than 400 people injured, was the most severe in China in more than 10 years.
The Olympic torch resumed its harried journey in communist Vietnam on Tuesday after China jailed 17 for last months riots in Tibet, the first sentencings in connection with the unrest. The global relay has endured the most tortuous journey of its history, beset by trouble since protesters breached security at the torch-lighting ceremony at Ancient Olympia in Greece last month.
China poured scorn on the Dalai Lama on Sunday and hailed protesters against Tibetan self-rule as patriotic heroes, suggesting the government is not prepared to give ground in talks proposed for coming days. China has blamed the exiled Buddhist leader's "clique" for unrest across Lhasa and other Tibetan areas.
China's offer to hold talks with aides to the Dalai Lama is unlikely to bring a breakthrough on Tibet, experts cautioned on Saturday, saying it was a PR exercise ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Chinese state media said on Friday that government officials would meet soon with a representative of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
China is to hold talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism whom it blames for a wave of unrest, state media reported on Friday, as the Olympic flame arrived in Japan. The move comes after concerted pressure from the West on China to talk to the Dalai Lama and marks the first serious step to defuse tensions.
Dogged by anti-Chinese protests in Paris, London, San Francisco and New Delhi, the Olympic torch relay is acting as a catalyst for an outpouring of nationalism and indignation by the man on the street in China. In an increasingly wired society, many, especially the internet-savvy young, have taken to the web to express their feelings.
China on Thursday snubbed an apology from CNN over remarks by one of its commentators as a wave of verbal assaults on foreign media raised concerns over coverage at this summer's Beijing Olympics. CNN's explanation that a commentator was referring to China's leaders -- not the people -- as a "bunch of goons and thugs".
China has lodged a formal complaint against television network CNN for what it called a vicious attack by one of its commentators, who labelled the Chinese as "goons". In a statement late on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao condemned the comments by Jack Cafferty on CNN's The Situation Room programme.
Former communist rebels in Nepal appear to be on the brink of a historic sweep in elections that will decide the political future of the Himalayan nation and end the rule of its 239-year-old royal dynasty. The Maoists' party has won 42 seats and is leading in 58 constituencies, the election commission said in a statement on its website.
Lawyers for African National Congress president Jacob Zuma will meet prosecutors on Thursday to decide whether his corruption case should begin on August 4, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. "It is only after the meeting today that we'll know if the date we have proposed is confirmed," NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said.
