News stories by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

BEIJING, Jul 11 (IPS) - Tens of thousands of residents in a Chinese city took to the streets last week to protest, forcing the government to scrap plans to build a copper plant. The incident is the latest in a rising number of localised protests as expression of public anger aimed at over-ambitious or corrupt officials in China over-boils.

For years Gou Suqin had to rely on her husband’s meagre migrant’s income from the city to support their rural family. Now, following a 10,000 RMB (1,500 dollars) microcredit loan from UN Women, 50-year-old Gou runs a successful musk deer farm. She now earns 60,000 RMB (9,000 dollars) a year - or six times as much as her husband.

China is notorious for containing some of the world’s deadliest mines - a reputation that has been corroborated in recent months by a series of fatal accidents. China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of coal. But the mining industry is beset by illegal operations, dangerous working conditions, local corruption and cover-ups of fatalities.

Millions of Chinese micro-blog users will be forced to hand over their details this week in a real-name registration drive. The new state regulations - piloted in five Chinese cities - have created uproar amidst fears the move will bring heightened censorship and a crackdown on users.

Imported television shows watched by millions will be canned during the country’s prime 'golden time' hours, the government announced last week. Last month, popular prime time entertainment programmes were slashed by two- thirds. This was after programmes featuring time travel were all but banned last year.

A recent series of public spats between Hong Kong locals and mainland Chinese have highlighted escalating tensions between Beijing and the former colony - and heralded in one of the most conspicuous anti-mainland campaigns seen in Hong Kong since the handover.

In a country which houses 21 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities, outcry over official underplaying of pollution is escalating as residents refuse to take government readings of the problem at face value.

In a country of 180 million single people and a growing gender imbalance, tens of thousands of people across China went looking for love on Singles’ Day Nov. 11. But events on the day may only have helped point to the continuing and growing difficulty of being single.

A Chinese independent film festival showcasing the work of some of the most daring Mainland directors has been forced underground following a police visit to the event’s launch last Saturday.

When Internet activist ‘Huaguoshan Zongshuji’ published a survey of luxury watches worn by Chinese government officials this month, the move was commended by the state media. Yet weeks later the survey was censored - shooting the one-party state’s uneasy relationship with corruption into the spotlight.