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.

North Korea announced May 25 that it has successfully conducted its second nuclear test, in defiance of international warnings. Geological authorities in the US, Japan and South Korea reported that the test triggered an earthquake with a magnitude of between 4.5 and 5.3. The tremor emanated from Kilju, the same area where North Korea carried out a test in October 2006. North Korea said that test was a success, but the US and South Korea said the bomb did not detonate fully.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said May 12 that President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso will discuss a possible peace treaty between the two nations at a G8 summit in Italy in July. Putin spoke at a news conference following talks with Japanese officials during his visit to Japan.

The US March 9 vowed to keep up military surveillance in waters off China and protested what it called harassment one day earlier of a US surveillance ship operated by civilian contractors for the Navy's Military Sealift Command. The Pentagon charged that a Chinese intelligence vessel and four others "shadowed and maneuvered dangerously close" to the USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea, then threw obstacles in the water as it tried to leave. During the confrontation, the Impeccable crew sprayed some of the Chinese sailors with a fire hose, causing some of the Chinese sailors to strip to their underwear.

Protesters in small motor-boats flying red flags circled the USS John C. Stennis chanting "carrier get out!" through megaphones as as the warship arrived Feb. 27 for a visit to Japan's Sasebo Naval Base, outside Nagasaki. Some 100 activists from the Nagasaki Peace Action Center, Rimpeace Sasebo and All Japan Dockworkers Union also gathered on the city's docks to cheer on the protest flotilla of some 25 boats.