Google to self-censor Chinese service

CHINA’S propaganda mandarins closed an outspoken supplement of a respected newspaper, as web search leader Google announced restrictions on a service for China to avoid confrontation with Beijing.

China’s Communist Party publicity department ordered Freezing Point, the weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily, to stop publication, its founding editor Li Datong confirmed yesterday.

Mr Li’s blog has also been shut after he publicised the decision to close the weekly, founded in 1995 with a circulation of 300,000.