A Chinese court sentenced human rights activist Huang Qi to three years in prison Nov. 23 on charges of illegally holding state secrets. Huang was a critic of the government's handling of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province that killed about 90,000 people. After the quake, he posted articles online criticizing the government's response and talked to foreign media outlets about how some children's deaths were the result of poorly-built schools. Huang was originally detained on June 10, 2008.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Tokyo despite a heavy police presence during President Barack Obama's visit on Nov. 13, to demand an end to US bases under the banner "Break up the Japan-US summit." Anti-nuclear activists held a separate rally as survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took a letter to the US embassy demanding that Obama follow through on his pledge to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. A Nov. 8 pre-summit protest drew more than 20,000 on the southern island of Okinawa, where more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan are stationed.

The media coverage of the Chongqing corruption trial is focusing on the salacious details of the city's reigning crime queen, Xie Caiping, the sister-in-law of the deputy police chief, who is accused of running 20 illegal gambling halls (and notoriously kept a private entourage of 16 young lovers). Six gang members have been sentenced to death for crimes including murder and blackmail, the first among hundreds expected to go on trial—including 14 high-ranking officials. Reading past the headlines reveals that the crime machine served as local enforcers for post-socialist China's new landed oligarchy.

At least five people are dead and several seriously injured after a group of club-wielding thugs attacked residents of Baijiamao village in Lin Xian county of central China's Shanxi province Oct. 12. The villagers were attempting to protect a local coal mine which they assert is their collective property when a mob of some 100 presumably hired by the mine's new private owner stormed the site in an attempt to remove the residents who had gathered there. The thugs set on the residents with broadswords, steel pipes and shovels, while one even drove a truck into a crowd of villagers.

Chinese protesters Aug. 17 broke into a smelting works they blame for the lead poisoning of hundreds of children, smashing trucks and tearing down fences. Villagers around the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company in Fengxiang county, Shaanxi province, launched their spontaneous protest after the government ruled that emissions from the facility had harmed the health of local people. At least 615 of the 731 children in two nearby villages have been diagnosed with dangerously high amounts of lead in their blood.

Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei says he was roughed up and detained by police last week when he and 11 others tried to attend the trial of rights advocate Tan Zuoren, who has been charged with subversion. The accusations against Tan Zuoren are apparently tied to his investigation of the deaths of thousands of schoolchildren in the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, as well as essays he wrote about the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen Square that ended in a deadly military crackdown.

Chinese human rights group Gongmeng announced July 30 that its co-founder, prominent attorney Xu Zhiyong, was arrested at his home the previous morning and has not been heard from since. The group has also been unable to reach a second staff member, Zhuang Lu. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have expressed concern over the detentions of Xu and Zhuang, calling for their immediate release. China's recent measures against human rights lawyers are viewed by many as an attempt to quash dissidence as the 60th anniversary of Communist rule approaches in October.

A helicopter was used for the first time June 13 to help local police hunt poppy plantations in suburban Beijing. The chooper was deployed around mountainous areas in Yanqing district, sending video images of the ground back to the headquarters. "If there is any poppy plantation in these areas, they will be easily discerned by police in the headquarters," said Zhao Wenzhong, a senior officer with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.