No press freedom during the Olympic games!

There will be no free internet for accredited journalists during their stay in Beijing as Reporters without Borders writes: The Chinese authorities confirmed today that the 20,000 foreign journalists covering the Olympic Games will not have unrestricted access to the Internet during their stay. International Olympic Committee media chief Kevan Gosper nonetheless yesterday said the [...]

Jacques Rogge against a “better world”?

The Economist blog “Certain ideas of Europe” describes the China argumentation of IOC boss Jacques Rogge. His defensive approach can be summarised with the following statements: “be reasonable, old chap, what can we do?” and “we don’t do politics but things are much better than you think” combined with some claims about the successes of [...]

Don’t let it happen!

via eurotopics a short excerpt of this article (in french): Marie-Hélène Miauton, director of the Swiss polling firm MIS Trend, doesn’t believe the threats of an Olympic boycott this summer in Beijing. “The Olympic universe has its own momentum, media rituals that it has to respect to the letter. … It’s in the lead up [...]

Express your opinion, from your TV room, it is possible

A new campaign (with some great banners!) has been launched by Romain in France: For the first time in its history, television offers a power: Audience. Like every time, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will be watched by the entire world, and will beat all records for audience, demonstrating the economic success of [...]

Europe should maybe stop this hypocrisy…

Sabine Verhest writes in Belgian daily La Libre about the problems of Europeans when dealing with China: (via eurotopics) “While the Tibetans continue demonstrating in Lhassa despite the repression, the Europeans have very courageously taken the step of treating China with kid gloves as much as possible. Meeting in Slovenia [on March 29th] under the [...]