I’ve been having a little trouble getting online videos to play in the middle kingdom… I’ve been searching YouTube for a filmclip of today’s torch ceremony in front of the Forbidden City, but something in my keywords (I was using “Beijing” “Torch” and “Olympics”, not the T-word) keeps sending me a 404.

I’m honestly not looking for anything sketchy or negative or bad for China, I just want a pretty video of happy people and the Olympic torch to share on my Olympics blog. (Er, I mean Patrick’s blog, I think it’s my blog now!) I’m actually looking for a cheery official video, and it’s been censored.

This type of thing makes me worry about what’ll happen at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Will we just be told “everything went well” with no idea if that’s true or not? China, I have high hopes for you. Don’t let me down!

Anyway, here’s a belated clip of the Olympic torch being handed over to China.

Look, I was trying to stay away from all the Olympics boycott news, but this Reuters headline popped up and I couldn’t resist sharing.

India’s marksmen are threatening to boycott the Beijing Olympics unless the government steps in to help alleviate a shortage of ammunition for training.

The nation’s leading medal prospects for the August Games are in shooting, with Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore fancied to bring home a gold medal after winning a double trap silver four years ago in Athens.

However, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) secretary Baljit Singh Sethi said a shortage of ammunition for air weapon competitors was hampering preparations.

On Friday, Sethi was quoted in the local media as saying the government provided the NRAI with all ammunition for 23 years but stopped doing so two and a half years ago.

“I don’t think it will be worthwhile sending the shooters to the Olympics…” Sethi said.

Via Reuters

The World Have Your Say podcast is up. I’ve having trouble linking directly to the episode, but if you go to their podcasts page, you can get the March 27th episode, called “Is China regretting hosting the Olympics?” The show has been edited down from 2 hours to the usual 50 minutes.

I snapped this picture on the way home from work today, it’s a perfect example of how Beijing is becoming more handicapped-accessible before the Olympics. This yellow brick road is made up of ridged paving stones to aid the blind, and ramps are also being added to the curb here.

World Have Your Say is discussing China and the Olympics tonight. The show asks the question, will China regret hosting the Olympics? I’ll be on, talking about why China won’t regret it. It’s a two-hour show this time, starting at 5 PM London time, which is 1 AM in China, so that’s 1 PM back home in New Jersey…

There’s been a lot of internet buzz on possible protests, and it’s not confined to China blogs and political websites. Here’s aWall Street Journal article on torch-relay protests.

Protests began Monday in Greece, with the traditional torch-lighting ceremony held at the ruins of the ancient stadium in Olympia. As China’s Olympic chief addressed the throngs, a man representing Paris-based Reporters Without Borders charged the podium to unfurl a banner with the Olympic rings depicted as handcuffs. Chinese state television cut away from the scene. Later, a pro-Tibetan protester covered in fake blood briefly blocked the torch relay’s path.

The torch procession — the Games’ organizers call it the “Journey of Harmony” — will last for 130 days, wending its way through St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires and New Delhi, even up the slopes of Mount Everest, before arriving in Beijing in time for the Games to begin on Aug. 8.

Every city hosting torch runners is instituting security measures. That includes San Francisco, long a hotbed of countercultural movements with a robust tradition of dissent and a large Asian community.

At least two parallel torch ceremonies — one on behalf of Tibetans and the other organized by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong — are being organized for the days before the official relay. Tibet groups will stage protests the evening before the race, with one group saying it has invited actor Richard Gere and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak.

A coalition of Darfur groups has paid to have more than 400 placards inserted into the April 4 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle protesting China’s support of the Sudanese regime. The group’s message — “Tell China to stop sponsoring genocide in Darfur” — is also emblazoned this week on the back of 70 city buses.

The Burmese American Democratic Alliance plans an aerial event. The group, which wants the Chinese government to extend pressure on Myanmar’s military regime, says it will hire a plane to tow a “Free Burma” banner. Nyunt Than, the group’s president, said he also expects to lead 500 protesters who will walk across the Golden Gate Bridge the morning of April 9. Then some of them will sit down and meditate, which he says could close a few lanes of traffic.

Students for a Free Tibet, meanwhile, says it plans to launch dozens of helium balloons carrying signs on the day of the relay. Members of the New York-based student group — which says it has 650 high-school, university and community chapters in more than 35 countries — say they also hope to sponsor a small plane which will carry a protest banner.

I don’t believe that protests will ruin the torch relay or Olympics, but Chinese media needs to acknowledge the protestors in some way, even if they just refer to protestors as people being rude at the ceremonies. The “nothing to see here” media coverage isn’t working now, and will be even less effective with more foreign journalists in Beijing.

Via WSJ

Today is another bright blue-sky day in Beijing, but it’s still funny.

China Celebrates Its Status As World2019s Number One Air Polluter

This is from The Onion, which is what we in the blogging world call NOT REAL. As in, this is *not real* news. It’s a joke. It’s fiction. It’s not true. It’s made up. But have a laugh anyway.

Via Lost Laowai

It’s a real blue-sky day in Beijing today! I hope we’ll have a lot more!

There’s an interesting break in the news blackout…

Even before the Olympic flame was lit Monday, a protester of China’s human rights policies disrupted the solemn ceremony, foreshadowing the prospect of demonstrations throughout the 85,000-mile torch-relay route right up to the Beijing Games themselves.

…

At Monday’s ceremony, one of the three protesting members of the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders ran behind BOCOG President Liu Qi as he was giving a speech. The protester unfurled a black banner showing the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

China state TV cut away from the protest and showed a prerecorded scene. Chinese TV commentators did not mention the demonstration.

The first torchbearer in the relay was Greece’s Alexandros Nikolaidis. After the torch left the stadium, a Tibetan woman covered in red paint or dye lay in the road approaching the village of Olympia while other protesters chanted “Free Tibet” and “Shame on China.”

Japanese runner Haturi Yuuki came within a few feet of the protester, then stopped and ran in place while plainclothes police removed her. They also dragged off a man accompanying her who was waving a Tibetan flag.

Police said the woman and the three members of Reporters Without Borders were being detained. One of the men arrested was Robert Menard, the group’s general secretary.

The three Frenchmen were charged with the misdemeanor count of offending national symbols. They were released pending trial in late May, and said they hoped to return to France on Tuesday.

“We’re asking the heads of government to boycott the opening ceremony,” one of the three protesters, Vincent Brossel, told AP Television News. “We’re not calling for a boycott of the games.”

Meanwhile, China Daily makes no mention of any protestors and simply says that the flame was “lit successfully”.

The torch for the 2008 Olympic Games has been lit successfully in ancient Olympia, Greece. The torch will begin a 130-day, 85,000-mile journey starting Monday. That will take it from the site of Olympia to Beijing, where the Summer Games is scheduled for August.

While much of the trip will be aboard a chartered jet, tens of thousands of torch-bearers, including 19,400 in China, will carry the flame on foot through 23 cities on five continents and then throughout China, where tens of millions of ordinary people have been aspiring to see the arrival of the torch.

Via PandaPassport and Yahoo

International news is still not working, but don’t worry! Look what we got in the mail today!

The “Dietary Guidelines for Beijing Residents” has dancing Fuwa and a daily nutrition food pagoda, while the other one seems like a hygiene and etiquette guide. I can’t read Chinese very well (we’ll call what I do “recognizing characters” and not “reading”), but there was a bit about washing your hands before you eat and covering your mouth when you cough.