[Previous entry: "US will block Brown campaign to beat poverty with gold sale"] [Next entry: "U.S.: Pay Gap Widens Between CEOs and Workers"]

04/12/2005:

"Chinese village protest turns into riot of thousands"

Reports that two elderly women were killed during a protest against factory pollution have sparked a bloody riot by thousands of villagers in eastern China.

Several dozen police officers were injured, five seriously, during the clashes in Huankantou village, Zhejiang province, on Sunday. It was the latest of several recent violent demonstrations, of a kind that poses an increasingly serious threat to China's stability.

The two protesters were said to have been killed when officials tried to disperse 200 elderly women who had kept a two-week vigil outside a chemical factory that they blamed for ruined crops and deformities in new-born babies.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk