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1. Xinjiang returns to normal despite sporadic tension
URUMQI, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Xinjiang is slowly returning to normal more than a week after s deadly riot, despite sporadic tension in the capital city of Urumqi on Monday.
According to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government, police shot dead two people and injured another in an attempt to stop them from attacking one person. The three people were attacking the fourth person with clubs and knives at 2:55 p.m. near the People's Hospital at Jiefang Nanlu. All four people involved were of the Uygur ethnic group. Police on patrol fired warning shots before shooting at the three suspects. Two died at the scene and the injured person was rushed to the People's Hospital.
The general situation in Xinjiang seemed to be improving, since traffic jams reappeared Monday on the major streets of Urumqi, indicating a return of normality to the city. This was also in stark contrast to the light traffic shortly after the riot on July 5 that left 184 people dead and 1,680 more injured. The authorities on Monday reopened the square in front of Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, the country's largest mosque.
2. Misleading media coverage refuted
Updated: 2009-07-14 (China Daily) -- Many Chinese citizens, including residents in Urumqi, have expressed their anger over inaccurate reports by the foreign media of the July 5 riots.
"Although the key July 5 reports by foreign media have improved to some extent, bias in the reporting still exists," said Phoenix Satellite Television commentator Lawrence Ho, who has been following the situation in Urumqi.
A number of foreign media agencies such as the BBC have "cleverly cut" and edited footage and information from State-run CCTV and Xinhua News Agency to create the "wrong impression" about what really happened in the riots, misleading the public as a result, state media reported. Similarly, foreign newspapers such as the New York Times were found to be using real pictures with inaccurate captions.
More than 25 Urumqi residents also released a press statement of a letter they signed aimed at the BBC to protest its false reporting. In the letter, residents expressed their anger over the British news agency's "twisting of the facts" about the riots, even though Chinese authorities gave foreign journalists the freedom to report the incident.
"You could only see bias or even hatred toward China in the BBC's report, anything but facts," the letter said. The residents urged the BBC to "stop lying" and present what really happened in Urumqi to Britons and people around the world.
"I was so angry when my Russian friends told me that the Moscow-based Star TV station claimed more than a thousand Uygurs were killed by Han people during the riot," Urumqi resident Yina said in her own letter protesting foreign media coverage of the riot. Yina then told her Russian friends that the TV station's report was untrue. "It's not responsible for a TV station to spread rumors without getting the basic facts checked."
More than 150 reporters from more than 60 foreign media agencies have arrived in the region. Journalists are given free rein to conduct interviews, officials said. As such, a number of foreign media agencies reported the Chinese government has been very open in dealing with the incident, compared with reports on the riots in Tibet last year.
3. First passenger-cargo vessel leaves mainland for Taiwan
Updated: 2009-07-13 (China Daily) -- The first combined passenger-cargo vessel left the Chinese mainland bound directly for Taiwan Monday morning.
It is the first such sailing after the mainland and Taiwan started direct air and sea transport and postal services last December.
The ship, "New Golden Bridge II", carrying 630 passengers, left Mawei, Fujian Province, at around 11 a.m. and is expected to reach Keelung, Taiwan in about ten hours.
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