China Blocks YouTube After Videos of Tibet Protests Are Posted - Commercial Circus MUST GO ON - Save the Olympics

China has at least 210 million Internet users, according to the government, and is expected to overtake the United States soon to have the biggest population of Web users.

Beijing tightened controls on online video with rules that took effect Jan. 30 and limited video-sharing to state-owned companies.

Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular American video Web site.

The government wants to control what the public saw and heard about protests that started on Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.

Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.

China-based video Web sites like as 56.com, youku.com and tudou.com don't appear to have any such videos posted.

In other moves the Israeli Goverment have warned Israeli's to keep away from Tibet . China is stopping climbers on Everest.

As if any one cares about the commercial circus , Jacques Rogge the president of the International Olympic Committee expressed concern Sunday when he was in sunny St. Lucia ,about a Chinese government crackdown in Tibet and neighboring provinces .

"We are very concerned," Jacques Rogge told reporters during a one-day visit to St. Lucia. "The IOC hopes that there can be an appeasement as soon as possible to this situation, and I also want to offer our condolences to the relatives of the people who lost their lives."

On Saturday, Rogge flatly rejected the idea of boycotting the Summer Games in Beijing over the violence in China, saying it would only penalize athletes. He has declined to say whether the committee would change its stance if the fierce crackdown continues.

Fuck the athletes who are after all human beings, the sponsors lucrative bandwagon must roll on regardless.