McAleese raises human rights issues with Chinese

The President of Ireland was in salubrious company as she met her Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Just half an hour before she arrived, first the media mogul head and then the former US President, emerged from the enormous headquarters of China's parliament, situated just off Tiananmen Square.

Disconcertingly, the Irish tricolour was flying around the scene of the 1989 massacre where hundreds of protesting students and workers demanding civil rights were crushed by army tanks.