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Titanic survivor dies at 96
————From Chinadaily

LONDON -- Barbara West Dainton, believed to be one of the last two survivors from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died in England at age 96.Dainton died Oct. 16 at a nursing home in Camborne, England, according to Peter Visick, a distant relative. Her funeral was held Monday at Truro Cathedral, Visick said Thursday.

Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean of Southampton, England, who was 2 months old at the time of the Titanic sinking, is now the disaster's only remaining survivor, according to the Titanic Historical Society.

The last American survivor, Lillian Gertrud Asplund, died in Massachusetts last year at age 99.

Dainton, born in Bournemouth in southern England in 1911, was too young to remember the night when the huge liner hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic in April 1912, killing 1,500 people, including her father, Edwy Arthur West.

He waved farewell as the lifeboat carrying Barbara; her mother, Ada; and her sister, Constance, was lowered into the ocean, according to Karen Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society in Indian Orchard, Mass. His body was never identified.

The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for all of 2,200 passengers and crew. Only a small number of those unable to find a place on the boats survived the freezing waters.

Dainton returned to England after the accident. She married in 1952.

She avoided publicity associated with the Titanic and even insisted that her funeral take place before any public announcement of her death, Kamuda said.

"We respected her privacy," Kamuda said. "We're so open with everything and our emotions nowadays, but people at that time, they just didn't talk about it."

Yahoo settles dissidents suit
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(CNN) -- Internet giant Yahoo has settled a lawsuit brought by the families of a Chinese dissident and a journalist, who claim they were jailed after the company cooperated with Chinese authorities, according to court documents.


Gao Qin Sheng, mother of jailed reporter Shi Tao, listens to an interpreter during the hearing.

Notification of the settlement was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California.

An attorney involved in the case who did not want to be identified told CNN the amount of the settlement was not disclosed.

The case was filed by dissident Wang Xiaoning; his wife, Yu Ling; Shi Tao, a reporter for a Chinese newspaper; and others not identified in court documents.

China's communist government sentenced Wang to 10 years in prison for sending out pro-democracy blogs.

Although he was sentenced in 2002 and has already served five years, Yu told CNN she only recently received court documents in the case. Those documents itemized the information Yahoo provided to the government.

Shi landed in trouble three years ago when the Chinese government prohibited journalists to report on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989.

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When Shi forwarded the notice to human rights groups, the Chinese government pressured Yahoo to give them the name of the account holder, and they did so. Shi was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last week, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was contrite, saying, "My heart goes out to the families" of the dissidents.

Yahoo attorney Michael Callahan discussed what the company might have faced if it had refused to provide the information to the Chinese government.

"I cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if, in my personal view, the local laws are overboard," Callahan said.

However, Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, who serves as chairman of the House committee and has led the probe into Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese government, remained critical of Yahoo in a statement issued Tuesday.

"It took a tongue-lashing from Congress before these high-tech titans did the right thing and coughed up some concrete assistance for the family of a journalist whom Yahoo had helped send to jail," Lantos said. "In my view, today's settlement is long overdue."

There was no immediate reaction to the reports of the settlement in China, as Chinese media were not reporting it and bloggers apparently had not heard about it.  Watch what's known about the deal »

But one Shanghai-based blogger, after being told about the settlement, told CNN, "Hopefully this settlement will have a long-term restraining effect on the Internet companies beyond this individual case ... The way they are making concessions to the Chinese government is unacceptable. They are hiding from their moral obligations and standards."

The attorney in the case told CNN the families of the detainees would have preferred that the settlement include a court finding of Yahoo's culpability, that the settlement terms be made public and that the terms included enforceability by the court. However, none of that was included in the final settlement, he said.

But, the attorney said, Yahoo executives did tell the detainees' families they will do everything they can to get the men out of prison. The families are confident, the attorney said, that Congress will bring the executives back before committees if they fail to deliver.


Yahoo and other U.S. companies, including Google and MSN, are accused of censoring their Internet search engines in China. The companies say they block content only when they're given a legal order from the Chinese to do so, and they say they always let customers know of the blocking of content.

Google told CNN it takes steps to make sure private users are not identified.

China vows tough line on protests
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BEIJING, China (AP) -- Chinese police will deal harshly with social or political demonstrations at the Beijing Olympics, a top security official said Friday.


Security guards patrol outside a fence surrounding the University of Science and Technology Beijing.

With 28,000 journalists expected to attend, the Aug. 8-24 Olympics offer a rare chance for protesters to express grievances against China's communist government on issues including religious freedom, Tibetan independence and global warming.

Liu Shaowu, deputy director of the Olympic Security Command Center, said security forces would stop any form of demonstration at or around venues. He also suggested that protests deemed threatening would be snuffed out far from Olympic sites.

"As for violating China's sovereignty and encouraging separatists and terrorists, definitely we will not allow that," Liu told reporters. "We will deal with that according to Chinese law."

Liu's comments, made at a rare media briefing on Olympic security, are likely to compound concerns that Beijing will use heavy-handed policing at the games.

Defending the measures, Liu said the protest clampdown at Olympic sites is in line with the Olympic charter, which he said forbids "any form of political, religious or racial demonstration."

His assistant, Cao Dongxiang, said protesters who managed to get inside a venue would be dealt with quickly.

"If a protester holds up a banner, it's against the rules, so security will take it down," Cao said.

Bolstering security will be an extensive electronic surveillance system, which journalists saw in part during a tour of the Olympic venue for judo and taekwondo. An elaborate security control room housed 17 screens monitoring hundreds of closed-circuit TV cameras inside and outside the 8,000-seat venue.

Liu and Cao declined to give specifics but said about 100 security officials -- some of them dressed as Olympic volunteers -- would be on duty inside the venue at the Beijing University of Science and Technology. Hundreds more would be on duty outside, some of them armed, Liu said.

Organizers have tried to play down the policing, and Liu said International Olympic Committee officials had been pleased when they didn't see a lot of police at test events. Any appearance of overbearing security could take the luster off the games and reopen the debate about the IOC's choice of Beijing.

Liu said about 20 government agencies were involved in providing security including the 2 million-member People's Liberation Army, police agencies, customs officials, firefighters and volunteers from military and police training schools. Unlike Greece, China is getting little outside help handling security.

Chinese media reports earlier this year put the cost of security at $300 million -- about one-fifth of the amount spent for the games in Athens, where NATO played a large part. Beijing organizers said last month that the operating budget had risen by at least 25 percent from $1.6 billion to more than $2 billion.

Officials said this was due largely to more spending on security and the rising value of the Chinese currency against the dollar.

"To guarantee there is a good atmosphere in the venues, we have to make sure the security is there," Liu said. "We are very confident of holding a secure Olympic games. We are confident about our security work."