Richard Spencer reports in the Telegraph:
The blocking of politically sensitive sites, including those dealing with Tibet and Taiwan, remained in place today despite government assurances that censorship would be lifted during the Games.
The ban is in contrast to the more liberal attitude of the Games village bookshop, which sells erotic books featuring provocative pictures of naked women with titles such as “Drawing book for the Nude”.
Such books used to be a common feature of provincial airport bookshelves in China, normally nestling in sections entitled “Art”, but have gradually disappeared in the last few years under the more puritan regime of President Hu Jintao.
Readers can also choose between illustrated volumes of Chairman Mao’s poetry, the memoirs of pioneers of hybrid rice development, or from a large collection of Agatha Christie novels.
The Olympic village, where 16,000 competitors will stay when the Games get under way next week, opened to great fanfare at the weekend. Facilities, on the surface similar to those at previous host cities, nevertheless give an unexpected insight into the variety of modern Chinese life.
Also, Mure Dickie reports in the Financial Times: China limits Olympics journalists’ web access.
China is to maintain its censorship of overseas websites even for journalists covering the Beijing Olympics, undermining earlier claims by the International Olympic Committee that international media would enjoy unfettered internet access during the Games.
Beijing routinely blocks access to thousands of overseas websites considered politically or socially suspect as part of a sprawling and secretive internet censorship system. However, the government had been widely expected to offer unfiltered internet access to the more than 20,000 journalists covering the Games, which open on August 8.
Jacques Rogge, IOC head, this month cited free internet access as an achievement of his “silent diplomacy” with Chinese officials.
“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the internet,” Mr Rogge said in an interview with AFP.
However, the Beijing Games organising committee (Bocog) insisted on Wednesday that it had never promised full freedom. “During Games-time we will provide sufficient and convenient internet access,” Sun Weide, Bocog spokesman, said.
And BBC reports:
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao confirmed that websites relating to the Falun Gong spiritual movement were blocked.
“As to sites related to Falun Gong, I think you know that Falun Gong is a cult that has been banned according to law, and we will adhere to our position,” he told a news conference on Tuesday.
He suggested that part of the problem with other sites could lie with the sites themselves.
“There are some problems with a lot of websites themselves that makes it not easy to view them in China,” he said. “Our attitude is to ensure that foreign journalists have regular access to information in China during the Olympic Games.”
But on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Olympic organising committee told the French news agency AFP that other – unspecified – sites were blocked.
Sun Weide declined to provide more details when asked by the BBC.
But he said reporters would be able to do their jobs.
“During the Olympic Games we will provide reporters with sufficient and convenient internet access so the Olympic Games will not be affected,” he said.
Finally, Andrew Lih writes about the Internet connection of Olympics Village price in his blog:
I take back my gripes about paying Accor hotels US $30 a night for Internet access. We have a new winner, namely the Beijing Olympics Media Village. My wife who is staying there already told me they were going to charge reporters for Internet access (and a censored one at that) but now the details have been posted to Slashdot, the online tech salon:
“Working for the Olympics as an IT contractor, I recently moved to the Media Village (where all of the reporters live) and was surprised the there was no free internet. BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games) is charging a ridiculous amount of money for ADSL service: for
* 512/512 it costs 7712.5 RMB (1,131.20 USD);
* 1M/512 it costs 9156.25 (1,342.95 USD);
* 2M/512 it costs a whopping 11,700 RMB (1,716.05 USD).That is for only one month! For extra features like a fixed IP? That costs an additional 450 RMB (66 USD). I just can’t believe that not only do I have to deal with the Great Firewall of China, but also pay through the nose to use it!”
