‘South Park’, a cartoon aimed at adults and featuring a group of nine-year olds in a Colorado town, has courted controversy since its 1997 debut, lampooning celebrities, politicians, religion, gay marriage and Saddam Hussein.

For all the admiration in Alaska for Sarah Palin, her rapid ascent from an activist in the P.T.A. to the running mate of Senator John McCain did not come without battle wounds. Her years in Wasilla, her first executive experience, reveal a mix of successes and stumbles, with Ms. Palin gaining wide support but alienating some townspeople.

There were scores of critical questions posed to the organisers on Friday dealing with touchy topics such as Tibet, protest parks, ticket scalpers, the hissing of Japanese competitors by Chinese audiences, the Falun Gong and doping. Journalists have previously accused the organisers of lying and refusing to answer questions.

The rare outburst by Wang Wei matched the severe tone of the world’s media, which has been frustrated by China’s promises of media freedom while encountering continued internet censorship, internal blackouts on Chinese reporting, harassment, detention, obfuscation and, repeatedly, lies.

While a promise was made to foreign journalists, China’s media had only the cold assurance, based on bitter experience, that they would face during the Olympics the same tightening of controls that precede any event of profound circumstance in China.

Today, directors, writers and painters who seek to expose the darker side of authoritarian rule not only enrage the censors, but also often find themselves shut out of the lucrative market for Chinese art, books and film. Many of those who find less political outlets for their talent, on the other hand, can get rich.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 6.14 million household internet subscribers at December 31, 2007. At a rate of $10 per user per year, the ongoing cost to Australian Internet users would be about $61.4 million per annum.

The aim of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium is to allow Chinese Internet users to visit any site they like, without government interference. But their efforts have turned into a technical game of cat and mouse, with Chinese censors working to block tools created by the group.

The censorship was uncovered when a visitor to the tourist town found that his searches for “Whakatane” were rejected, with the Freenet website offering the explanation that “the content is filtered so this service is for legitimate use”.

The International Olympics Committee was maintaining yesterday that no secret deal had been done to allow China to maintain its censorship of the internet and to continue to spy on emails. But its shift in forcing China into last-minute concessions told a different story.