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/ 26 April 2008

Dalai Lama talks unlikely to bring success

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.

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/ 10 April 2008

China says it has thwarted Olympic terror attacks

China has cracked a terrorist group plotting to kidnap foreigners during the Beijing Olympics, police said on Thursday. The announcement follows the revelation of two other terror plots last month, but there has been scepticism over whether Beijing is inflating a terror threat to justify tighter control on dissent ahead of the Olympics.

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/ 4 April 2008

Muslims, Chinese tense neighbours in Kashgar

The muezzin’s call to prayer at Kashgar’s main Id Kah mosque is a loud reminder that millions of Muslims here in China’s far west answer to a higher authority than the Communist Party. Muslim residents of this 2 000-year-old Silk Road city express quiet anger when asked about recent clashes in a nearby city between Muslims and Chinese police.

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/ 23 May 2007

China won’t budge on hated ‘one-child’ policy

Rioting has highlighted mounting pressures to change China’s controversial population control policies, observers said on Wednesday, but the government shows no signs of buckling. Security reinforcements had moved into 28 towns in the southern Guangxi region after thousands of residents clashed in recent days with officials enforcing the so-called "one-child" policy.