World Watch: Standing tall

* China: Officials callously defended the government’s role in 1989’s brutal crackdown of protesters at Tiananmen Square.

* U.S.: Good news – 431,000 jobs were created last month. Bad news – 95% of those posts were for temporary employment.

* Nigeria: At least 163 people died since March as a result of illegal gold mining.

* Japan: New Prime Minister Naoto Kan has a daunting task ahead of him if he wants to fulfill his promise of “rebuilding” Japan.

Image – The Guardian (“A Chinese man stands in front of a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd., in Tiananmen Square on 5 June 1989.”)
Online Sources- The Telegraph, BBC News, MSNBC, AP

World Watch: Standing tall

The twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests was commemorated last week.

Certainly one of the most iconic images was the man who stood in front of a line of tanks and blocked their progress. But who was “tank man” and whatever happened to him? These and other questions were tacked in this brilliant “Frontline” documentary from 2006. The famous event can be very briefly seen below:

(Hat tip: MetaFilter).

Online Sources- MetaFilter, PBS, YouTube, BBC News