Member Submitted/Breaking News

Residents of a restive village in southern China held a symbolic election on Wednesday, a small step towards grassroots rights in a centre that is now a benchmark of rural defiance against land grabs and corruption that blight villages nationwide.

Slamming against the resource ceiling...

BEIJING, January 31, 2012 (AFP) - Authorities in China's volatile Xinjiang region plan to recruit 8,000 extra police officers, a government official said Tuesday, as they beef up security in the remote area. The Asian powerhouse is gearing up for a major leadership transition later this year, and authorities are clamping down on dissidents and strengthening security in volatile areas in a bid to avoid unrest. Xinjiang -- a vast region in China's northwest that is home to around nine million mostly Muslim Uighurs who complain of oppression under Chinese rule -- has been hit by sporadic bouts of violent unrest in the past few years.

Pay attention. This signals expectations of a major collapse. -- MCR

Though nuclear power still has a strong foothold in Asia, anti-nuclear sentiment and protest are growing from Mongolia to South Korea to Taiwan and even - in modest ways - in China.

Clamping down backfires eventually.

Chinese Scientists: Climate Change Threatens Food Security...

"Thousands of Chinese workers protesting over compensation and job security at a Sanyo Electric Co Ltd plant clashed with police in southern Shenzhen, media said on Monday, the latest outbreak of labor unrest in China's manufacturing hub."

BEIJING - Prices for new residential apartments in Beijing are estimated to have dropped by 11.3 percent year on year in 2011, as the government's policies to cool the sizzling property market took hold.