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POPSNow Bush Is Appeasing Iran joined envoys from France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany in talks with Saeed Jalili -- Iran's nuclear negotiator and an Ahmadinejad confidant -- about incentives to give to Tehran. ven with record oil prices, mismanagement has driven the Iranian economy into the ground. On July 14, the Ministry of Housing reported an "historical" 125% rise in housing prices. The same day, Tabnak, a news Web site run by a former head of the IRGC, admitted foodstuff inflation had reached 50% annually. On July 8, 2008, a National Iranian Oil Company executive acknowledged in the Iranian press that, without significant investment in infrastructure, Iranian oil production would decline each year by 300,000 barrels a day. In the past month alone, Iranian workers have struck for unpaid wages at the Khodro automotive plant (which assembles Peugeots), the Alburz Tire Company, and the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane factory.
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POPSFalun Gong Targeted Ahead Of Beijing Olympics authorities have instead been using the Olympics as a pretext to escalate persecutions of religious and political dissidents. Chinese authorities fear that Falun Gong, along with Tibetans, Uighurs, and other dissidents, may use the international media presence during the games to draw attention to their causes. "It is now imperative that the international community leverage real pressure and stop these deplorable actions, lest the legacy of the 2008 Olympics be hundreds of Beijing residents languishing in labor camps," Zhang said. The apparent animosity towards Falun Gong on the part of the Beijing Olympics organizer is hardly new. In 2004, the head of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, Liu Qi, was found liable in a U.S. federal court for his role in the torture of Falun Gong practitioners while he was serving as mayor of Beijing.
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POPSCth1 Vehicles pass a major thoroughfare towards the China Central Television (CCTV) headquarters (R) in Beijing July 18, 2008.
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POPSrailway station A security guard keeps watch in front of an artist's rendering of the Beijing South Railway Station that is still under construction July 22, 2008. Foreign journalists were invited on a media tour on board the CRH high-speed train with a top speed of 350km/hour via the 120 kilometre line Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway. The train will be put into use before the Beijing Olympic Games. REUTERS/Claro Cortes IV (CHINA) (BEIJING OLYMPICS 2008 PREVIEW)
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POPSstadium1 The Bird Nest National Stadium lit up for a rehearsal of the opening ceremony is reflected in a pool of water in Beijing, China, Wednesday, July 16, 2008. Full dress rehearsals are conducted under a cloak of secrecy ahead of one of the most anticipated summer Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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POPSCTH The new China Central Television headquarters building is seen in Beijing Thursday July 17, 2008. The building consists of two angled towers connected at the top to form a continuous loop of horizontal and vertical sections. The spectacular 230 meter (755 foot) building, one of Beijing's tallest, will house more than 10,000 staff. The building is one of a series of landmarks, notable for their futuristic design, that will greet visitors to the Olympics Games, which open Aug. 8.
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POPSHomeland Security Merchandisers Go to China Note: Communist, fascist governments like the same technology being setup in America! Kaa-chiiing! Selling out liberty is highly profitable and driving the agenda more. Note the sales pitches and methodology to establish tyranny by identifying it with patriotic labels, just more proof that there is a global conspiracy to increase strength of governments against their people invoking the (microscopic) threat of "terrorism": The surveillance experiment is part of the heroically named Golden Shield Project (Patriot Act, anyone?) which also gave birth to another of our favorite censorship models the Great Firewall.
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POPSBeijings Iconic Landmarks' Very Western Look
The eye-catching building, which is nearly finished, will be the headquarters of China Central Television, the staid propaganda arm of China's ruling Communist Party, and it's perhaps the boldest and most daring of several new buildings that have given Beijing a stunning new appearance for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games. The last of them is the new television building, the CCTV headquarters, and it can nearly make one dizzy standing on the ground and looking up at its odd, teetering 49-story towers connected by a multistory, cantilevered, jagged cross section over open space at a vertiginous 36 stories up in the air. Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the building has been called an "angular marvel" and a "dazzling reinvention of the skyscraper." Its engineering is so complex that the designers say such a building couldn't have been built a few years ago. That's because it took immense computing power. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/264/story/44618.html
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POPSBeijing Olympic Opening Ceremony Rehearsal Check out these explosive photos. The 2008 summer Olympic games are less than one month away and the people in China want things to smoothly. To that end, they rehearsed part of the opening ceremony.