China's Communist Party gets a taste for the blogging craze

Around 20 officials from a town in eastern China have set up their own blogs after being encouraged by a local Communist Party leader, state media said.....

However, the Chinese journalists noticed that visitors to the site are not allowed to post their comments immediately, a fact the town's computer department explains is simply a technical issue.

While the Communist government considers the Internet a useful tool in the economic development of the country, it also clamps down on any political opposition that appears there. Several blogs are regularly shut down by the authorities.

Reporters Without Borders said recently that "in a country where you can spend ten years in prison for some messages posted on the net, writing a political blog under your own name is a high risk activity."