Summer Olympic Games Open in Beijing

Human Rights in China, One World One Dream....

Pro-Tibet Protester Deported to US The eyes of the world are focused on China today as the Summer Olympic Games open in Beijing. One big question centers on whether the Olympic Committee and the Chinese government will allow any public protests during the Games. We speak with an activist who was arrested in China and deported after unfurling a Tibet independence banner close to the main Olympic stadium.











“This is the Olympics the West Wanted”–Dave Zirin on US Corporations Entering China, Athletes Speaking Out and the Games from ’68 to Today


As the 2008 Summer Olympic Games open in Beijing, we speak with sportswriter Dave Zirin. “This is the Olympics the West wanted: games where the grandest prize is not a gold medal but a glittering entree to China’s seemingly endless army of potential consumers,” writes Zirin. “This is the reason that George W. Bush will attend the opening ceremonies, the first U.S. President to do so on foreign soil.”

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Australia urged to ban China's 'transplant tourism' A human rights lawyer from Canada has called on the Australian Government to ban transplant tourism. David Matas is addressing the International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Sydney today, where he says he will present new evidence of forced organ removals from prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners in China.

China in human rights dance, says Rudd Kevin Rudd poses for photos with a Chinese children's choir after they sang at the welcoming ceremony for the Australian Olympic Team. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday summed up China's progress on human rights as "two steps forward and one step back". Speaking before the opening of the Olympic Games, Mr Rudd said China deserved credit for moving beyond the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and the suppression of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989, but that "much, much more" needed to be done. "As someone who's looked at the history of human rights in China, it's always been two steps forward, one step back," Mr Rudd said when asked if China had fulfilled its promise, made in 2001 when it was awarded the 2008 Games, to improve human rights.

Olympics human rights ads pulled: GetUp! Australia: Advocacy group GetUp says they expect to be reimbursed for advertisements protesting human rights abuses in China that were stopped from going to air during the coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony. The organisation says they paid Channel Seven to feature the ads before and after the event and were given approval to do so. GetUp's Brett Solomon says he is extremely disappointed by the decision not to air the ads.

Hypocrisy, human rights and the Beijing games The Beijing Olympic games, which began on August 8, are shaping up to be a perfect reflection of our times — taking place against a backdrop of human rights abuses, terrorism scares and under a blanket of chemical smog.

Athletes' letter condemns China on rights Forty athletes taking part in the games have written an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao, expressing their concerns about Tibet. The signatories to the letter, which was sent to the International Herald Tribune newspaper, include Cuban hurdler Dayron Robles, Croatian world high jump champion Blanka Vlasic, and US 400 metres runner DeeDee Trotter.

American Foreign Policy Brought to You by China: Advisers to Obama, McCain Tied to US Multinationals that Profit from Beijing


President Bush is heading to China this week, where he will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics on Friday. The Games’ presence in Beijing have helped spotlight opposition to China on a number of policies, including its repression of the Tibetan independence movement, its support for the Sudanese government in Darfur and its crackdown on dissidents and civil liberties at home. In the latest issue of Harper’s Magazine, Ken Silverstein says many of the bipartisan experts who have advocated so-called “constructive engagement” with China are tied to major US multinational corporations that profit heavily from the Chinese market.


Naomi Klein and Christian Parenti on How Beijing Olympics Highlight Globalization of Police State, Inequality


The equipment and integrated security systems used to detain Olympic protesters will remain long after the Olympics, to be used, many fear, on China’s own population. And some of the biggest beneficiaries of this surveillance boom are US hedge funds and corporations, including Cisco, General Electric and Google. We speak to journalists Naomi Klein and Christian Parenti, both of whom have recently reported from China.

Australia to sign up to anti-torture treaty Things like the Death Penalty, Genocide, Water boarding, Rendition, Terror, False Flag Ops, Propaganda, War on Witches, State-Terror, Selling Human Body Parts of Executed Prisoners, Occupation of Sovereign Nation States, Pre-emptive Strikes on Sovereign Nation States, No Freedom After Speech, Killing Their Opposition Political Party Leaders and Media, Inhibiting or Killing Freedom of the Press, Inhibiting Internet Freedom, Conspiracy Theories, and Govenment Propaganda by Corporate Media etc...