Authorities in Beijing have dispersed a group of protesters who gathered near a railway station in the southern part of the capital.The protest came after an attempt to stage a silent sit-in outside the complaints department of China's ruling Communist Party was thwarted by police.The petitioners, who have come to Beijing from across China in a bid to draw attention to alleged abuses in their hometowns, regrouped in the southern district of Fengtai, where many of their number live in rough, shanty-town accommodations.

Around 100,000 people – according to the organizers – staged a protest in Taipei on Jun 26, chanting anti-communist slogans, over the signing of what is called Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China.President Ma Ying-jeou has been pushing for the agreement, saying it will boost growth and employment. The opposition, on the other hand, is calling for a referendum on the pact.Pro-independence groups in Taiwan say the agreement will strengthen Beijing's influence over the self-ruled island.

The Chinese have spotted another buying opportunity: Europe.After snapping up large tracts of Africa to extract oil and minerals, Chinese businesses are taking advantage of cash-strapped eurozone nations to gain a foothold.As soon as next month a group of Chinese manufacturers hope to get the green light to develop a €50m (£40m) plot in Athlone, central Ireland and begin transforming it into what local papers have dubbed Beijing-on-Shannon.Similar plans are under way in Greece, which along with Ireland has been the worst hit by the credit crunch and financial crisis.

I was in Switzerland at the beginning of this month and gave a slideshow and talk at Zurich on Saturday the 5th, “Was Tibet an Independent and Sovereign State?”, based on my essay Independent Tibet – The Facts, but with a more polemical title. The talk was well attended by Tibetans. In fact the auditorium was packed full, and there was a good Q & A session.The talk had been organized by Tibetans in Switzerland who wanted to start a Rangzen Alliance group in that country.

This Centre has learned that more than 2,000 middle school students of Paoche Middle School in Pizhou City, Jiangsu Province surrounded and attacked the city government building on the evening of 21 June because they were upset about the city government's decision to relocate the school. Some people were injured when students clashed with several hundred riot police personnel, but the number of injured or dead is unknown. The students did not disperse until the secretary of the city's Party committee, Feng Qipu, promised that Paoche Middle School would not be relocated after all.

An award-winning Tibetan environmentalist's trial on separatism charges has been put on hold, the latest twist in a trio of intertwined cases pitting three brothers against China's communist authorities.The cases come amid increasing reports of repression of Tibetan intellectuals, an echo of the massive security crackdown that followed deadly rioting in the capital Lhasa two years ago.Rinchen Samdrup was due to go on trial Thursday in the Tibetan region of Chamdo on the charge of "incitement to split the country," but the trial was abruptly canceled on Sunday, according to lawyer Pu Zhiqiang.

Last month, the Chinese Communist regime initiated a series of political movements in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under the title of “Protecting social stability and unity between the ethnic groups.”These campaigns include: burning the Uyghur’s’ traditional women’s clothing and Muslim religious books, closing study places for the Koran and detaining or economically punishing those who participate in or organize any groups to study the Koran.Even having a long beard became a reason for economic punishment.

Workers at a second Toyota plant in Tianjin went on strike on Thursday 17 June, causing production to be suspended. Talks between workers and management at Toyota Gosei Co. over wage demands continued Friday, a management spokesman said.A brief strike at Toyota’s steering wheel manufacturer in Tianjin earlier on 15 June ended when management agreed to consider workers’ demands for higher pay.However, several workers at Tianjin Star Light Rubber and Plastic have expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of negotiations and are threatening to strike again if their demands are not met.

Hundreds of Tibetan residents have been protesting since Monday over attempts by the local government to remove them from their land.They gathered outside government offices in Yushu's Gyegu township with banners after the government made public reconstruction plans in which people would be relocated."The important thing is that in the quake-hit area, a lot of the local people bought land here on which to build their houses," a monk from a local monastery, Tsering Gyatso, said.

To deal with escalating social conflicts, China announced on Jun 13 the launch of a “massive” seven-month “strike hard” campaign, reported China’s official China Daily newspaper Jun 15.It said police nationwide were also told to watch high-risk places such as suburbs, and to nip violence in the bud by being more vigilant to social conflicts and helping resolve problems.The report quoted Zhang Xinfeng, vice-minister of public security, a telling a national meeting on the day, "China, during a process of social and economic transformation, is facing emerging social conflicts and new problems in

Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a prominent local lama and activist of Lithang County in Sichuan province, originally sentenced to death in Dec’02 , suffers from ailments related to bones, heart, and blood pressure, reported Radio Free Asia , citing a written statement from a source in Tibet. The report followed a meeting his two sisters were finally allowed by 5he authorities on Apr 27.The meeting, which Sonam Dekyi and Dolkar had been petitioning for for a long time, took place at an unspecified place arranged by the authorities some 200 miles (320 kms) from the provincial capital, Chengdu.

Striking workers at a Honda auto parts plant here are demanding the right to form their own labor union, something officially forbidden in China, and held a protest march Friday morning.Meanwhile, other scattered strikes have begun to ripple into Chinese provinces previously untouched by the labor unrest.A near doubling of wages is the primary goal of the approximately 1,700 Honda workers on strike here in this southeastern China city, at the third Honda auto parts factory to face a work stoppage in the last two weeks.

Some 50 workers striking at a factory in eastern China were injured, five seriously, after clashing with security forces earlier this week.A strike halted production by carmaker Honda for the third day running on Wednesday.Recent clashes and walkouts throughout China have called attention to the poor working conditions in many factories.About 2,000 assembly line workers at the KOK Machinery factory in the city of Kunshan tried to take their protests onto the street on Monday and were prevented from exiting.

Emboldened by the successful strike of their colleagues at Honda’s transmission plant last week, about 250 workers at the company’s exhaust plant in Foshan went out on strike Monday 7 June demanding higher wages and overtime payments.This followed an almost identical strike action at Taiwanese-owned Merry Electronics (美律电子有限公司) in Shenzhen’s Bao’an district, on Sunday morning. A few hundred workers blocked the factory entrance at around 8.am and the crowd eventually grew to more than one thousand, spilling out on to the main road in Dalang sub-district.