China’s minimum wage is lower than that in 32 African countries, and is almost the lowest in the world, according to “World Wage Research” (“WWR”), a widely viewed report circulated on China’s major Web sites and blogs. “China’s average annual wage is less than 15 percent of the world average, ranking 158th in the world,” said Liu Zhirong, independent Chinese scholar and author of “WWR,” during an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA).His research showed that the lowest average annual income of the 183 countries and regions in the world is approximately US$6,078, while China’s is only US$896.

Madrid - A judge at Spain's National Court said Friday that he had shelved an inquiry into alleged human rights violations by China in Tibet. Judge Santiago Pedraz said the court could no longer handle the case after a new law restricted its powers to investigate human rights cases abroad.Pedraz had earlier accepted a request to investigate a complaint lodged by several Tibet support groups, which accused China of a "generalized and systematic attack" against the Tibetan population following riots in March 2008.

NEW YORK—As families across China prepared to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the relatives of Ms. Gao Qiying were coping with the sudden death of the 40-year-old photographer.Gao, a Falun Gong practitioner from Guizhou, had been abducted in 2008 before the arrival of the Olympic torch in her town. She died in custody on February 12, 2010, two days before the holiday and within weeks of complaining to her family that prison authorities had injected her with an unknown drug.

HENAN– For many women, a husband’s profession is simply a means of support. For the wives of Chinese house church pastors, their husband’s work can lead to devastating pain and physical suffering. For Chen Hailan, wife of Pastor Guo Quanyou, it meant broken vertebrae, a concussion, and paralyzing pain. On October 19, 2009, sixty Christians were holding a time of worship and fellowship at Pastor Guo Quanyou’s house in Neixiang. At about 10:00 AM, 18 local police besieged the house and arrested and interrogated the Christians.

Four Tibetan nationals, including three women, were arrested Saturday from Nepal's Dolakha district after escaping Chinese-occupied Tibet, according to a Nepalese media report on Sunday.
The four Tibetans did not possess travel documents and could be deported back to Tibet, according to Nepalnews online, which quoted police as saying.
A Nepali national was also held on suspicion of helping them to cross the Tibetan border, police said adding all five persons have been handed over to the immigration department in Kathmandu.

The number of protests and those sentenced for being involved in them across the Tibetan Plateau in 2008 and thereafter may have been far more than what has been reported so far. In the Tehor area of Karze ,in Tibet's Kham Province, alone, there were more than 240 peaceful protests and over 140 were sentenced between Mar 10’08 and Jun 11’09, according to a new report released Feb 19 by the Tehor Welfare Association in Dharamsala.

Armed police in Khekor, Seda township, tried unsuccessfully to detain two Tibetan youths, Rinchen Dorje, 23, and Drukchung, 24, who argued when police tried to take down a Tibetan flag that had been hung on an electrical post on Feb. 14.
Witnesses reported stepped-up security beginning Feb. 17, including several hundred armed personnel in the city.

Thousands of Tibetans from nearby villages and townships gather near Ngaba Kirti monastery and burn incense in the gigantic incense burner and throw wind-horse prayer flags in the air. People wandered in the streets and shouted ki ki so so lha gyalo (victory to gods - a slogan Tibetans say after throwing tsampa in the air during the incense burning ritual of purification). At the time of this report going online many monks of Ngaba Kirti monastery were still sitting around the incense burner saying prayers.

Nearly three-quarters of all Americans think Tibet should be an independent country, according to a new national poll.
The poll's release came as President Obama was to meet with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader in exile, at the White House. The poll also indicates that 53 percent say it's more important for the United States to take a strong stand on human rights in China than to maintain good relations with Beijing.

In an effort to address the problems posed by China’s massive build up of military infrastructure and deployment of force hardware along its border with occupied Tibet, India plans to base six surface-to-air Akash missile squadrons in the North-East, reported the Times of India online Feb 16. The two countries share an unresolved 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC), a result of the Chinese annexation of Tibet.

In occasione del Losar gli amici Verni e Cuccodoro hanno messo in rete il sito della casa di produzione video “Breizh Productions”

Vedi : http://www.breizhproductions.com

A sit in protest by around 400 Tibetans on the first day of the Tibetan New Year led to a standoff between the Tibetan protesters and Chinese security forces in Ngaba County.

The monks and laypeople said prayers and threw Tsampa in the air to mourn the killings of several Tibetans in the 2008 protests all over Tibet. The monks sitting at the protest are from Ngaba Kirti Monastery and Sey Monastery.

“Dozens of Chinese families continue to suffer the awful effects of the last Olympics because a loved-one is still in jail for using the fundamental right to free expression,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee and its president, Jacques Rogge, are doing nothing to obtain the release of these innocent people, whose ordeal is a stain on the Olympic movement’s reputation.”

A 20-year-old factory worker who joined a banned political party was sentenced to jail for 18 months yesterday, his mother said.
A court in southern China's boomtown city of Shenzhen found Xue Mingkai guilty of subversion of state power because he joined the US-based China Democracy party last April, Xue's mother Wang Shuqing said.
Xue was the latest of several people jailed in recent months for subversion or other vaguely defined laws that critics say are often used to silence dissent.