Press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling for the immediate release of Zhen Jianghua, the director of Across The Great FireWall (ATGFW.org), an anti-censorship website, and condemns the Chinese government’s continuing persecution of citizen-journalists and bloggers. 

by Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has reiterated its call for journalist Gao Yu’s immediate release after a Beijing people’s high court today reduced her sentence on appeal from seven to five years in prison. Gao did none of the things she is alleged to have done.

By James Petras
In Remembrance of Jairo Martinez and Roman Ruiz, Fighters and Victims of ‘War Through Peace Negotiations’  
On 21 May 2015, the Colombian Air Force (FAC) bombed the base camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killing 26 guerrillas. Three days later the FAC bombed other FARC bases killing 14 more guerrillas. This was part of an official offensive, launched by President Juan Manuel Santos, the US’s most loyal client in Latin America. Among the victims were FARC Commanders Jairo Martinez, a participant in the ongoing peace negotiations in Havana and Roman Ruiz.

By James Petras
“We will have a very strong (military) presence, very strong continued posture throughout the region to back our commitments to our allies, to protect and work with our partners and to continue ensuring peace and stability in the region, as well as back our diplomacy vis-à-vis China on the South China Sea”.

David Shear, US Department of Defense’s Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs.

Indian President Modi “seals $22 billion of deals on China visit . . . China had already promised $20 billion of infrastructure investment during (Chinese President) Xi’s visit to India last year”.
Financial Times (5/18/165, p. 4)

The highly influential Council on Foreign Relations recently published a Special Report entitled “Revising US Grand Strategy toward China”, (Council on Foreign Relations Press: NY 2015), co-authored by two of its Senior Fellows, Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis (‘B and T’), which proposes a re-orientation of US policy toward China. The Report is a policy for buttressing ‘US primacy in Asia’ and countering what they describe as “the dangers that China’s geo-economic and military power pose to US national interests in Asia and globally”. The Report concludes by listing seven recommendations that Washington should follow to re-assert regional primacy.

By David Swanson
The history of catastrophically murderous and stupid warfare that the United States can memorialize on Memorial Day dates back to Day One and earlier, begins with the genocide of the native inhabitants of the land, the invasions of Canada, etc., and from that day to this too many deadly escapades to list.

The Government will later this evening sign two agreements aimed at improving Ireland's trade and business links with China. Both agreements will be signed by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton and by China's International Trade Representative and Vice-Minister of Commerce, Mr. Gao Hucheng, at Dublin Castle following the bilateral talks between the Taoiseach and Vice-President.

China boasts by far the largest population of any country. As Chinese authorities implement yet greater censorship over news and information regarding external events, the question must be asked: Will China become the first far eastern country to rise and rebel in the wake of the Middle East uprisings? Despotic censorship of information by those who fear its impact on their own security of tenure is nothing less than dictatorial tyranny, regardless of any professed 'well intent' of the repression.