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Tiananmen Square – the epicentre of a student pro-democracy protest 20 years ago – has been flooded with armed police and teams of plain-clothed security officials

A virtual lockdown has been put in place to prevent any demonstrations on this most sensitive anniversary.

Foreign television crews have been barred entry to the vast square – and several were detained.

It is thought that more than 2,000 people – mostly students – were killed when the Chinese army put down the protest on June 3 and 4, 1989 – turning tanks and machine guns on the unarmed crowd.

However, the Communist Party has never revealed the precise total of those killed.

The Chinese have now reacted angrily to a call by US Secretary of State Hillery Clinton to publish the names of those killed or missing during the crackdown.

Channel 4’s 4ip project has sparked a glimmer of hope in the broadcast industry given the state of the economy at present.

Where commercial media companies are purely focused on the most secure money-generating digital projects, Channel 4 has the luxury of being able to explore potentially powerful digital businesses as well as public service projects. They have been given £20m to spend over three years which fails to compete with TV commissioning budgets but represents a substantial opportunity for a low-cost, influential and increasingly important sector brimming with creative talent.

The 4iP Fund aims to deliver publicly valuable content and services on digital media platforms with significant impact and in sustainable ways. It represents one of the biggest and most exciting calls-to-action for new and emergent digital media companies in the UK.

Tom Loosemore head of 4Ip and former head of Web 2.0 at the BBC and Ofcom digital strategy adviser has declared 4ip projects will be allowed to fail.

“We’re ‘learning by doing’. And on the internet, if you’re not failing, you’re not taking enough risks. The trick is to fail really quickly and cheaply – to fall forward, fast. We put huge emphasis on getting running code out there quickly and cheaply, with enough built-in enough flexibility to adapt to how people actually use products. And we’re not afraid to drown puppies.”

“Times are tough, but it would be remiss for a public institution with a remit for innovation to ignore seismic changes in people’s media preferences and behaviours – particularly amongst those growing up with the internet.”

4iP hopes to be fully integrated with Channel 4 by 2011, and hop that other institutions will follow suit by then.  

David Carradine, who played Uma Thurman’s nemesis Bill, in Quentin Tarrantino’s Kill Bill sequels, has been found dead in a Bangkok hotel room

The 72-year-old was in Thailand filming his latest film Stretch, according to his personal manager, Chuck Binder.The

Kung-Fu specialist is best remembered for his role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s US TV series Kung Fu.

News of the cause of death has yet to be released.

With twilights 5 award assault on the MTV movie awards this week you would think most of the fallout would be centred around the movie and its cast members. But one event has dominated the news since the award ceremony and has everybody talking about it whether they saw the incident or not.
This incident has come to be known as Kugelsackgate, and if you havn’t guessed already this is the incident involving Detroit Rapper Eminem, and Sacha Baron Cohen as his alter ego Bruno.

The now infamous incident which saw Baron Cohen’s character Bruno make his entrance on wires, wearing angel wings, knee high boots and a white thong wedged where the sun don’t shine, come crashing down on top of the 8 mile rapper with his scantily covered behind all in Shady’s face.
This lead to Eminem’ s band members D12, trying to free him from the grasps of Homosexual character Bruno, once freed Eminem walked out cursing at Bruno and the event.

Many were quick to criticise Eminem’s reaction, stating that he himself made jokes at the expense of others, and he had this coming to him.
But it has been revealed that Eminem was in on the prank, and had rehearsed the stunt prior to the award show. MTV writer Scott Aukerman revealed the stunt, which saw the bare-bottomed comedian descend on Slim Shady’s lap, was in fact a well-rehearsed sketch.

He said: ‘Yes, the Bruno/Eminem incident was staged. That’s all anyone wants to talk about, so let’s get it out of the way. They rehearsed it at dress and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show then.’

With Eminem’s comeback album Relapse recently released and Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film “Bruno” set for release in mid July, this incident has been heralded as the perfect P.R stunt.

The Premier League has become the most popular football league in the world over the past decade, available in 662m homes. They plan to overhaul the way they sell their overseas rights as part of a drive to further grow the appeal of English top-flight football in emerging markets such as China, Africa and India. Under the current deal, the premier league sells the rights on a territory-by-territory basis; income from overseas rights has more than doubled to £625m, a figure that is expected to increase further when the new contracts are offered on a staggered basis across the rest of the year. Last time, 81 deals covered 211 territories.

At its two-day AGM, which begins today, the Premier league chief executive, Richard Scudamore, and his head of international broadcasting and media operations, Phil Lines, will put forward a plan designed to counter the threat of American sports and rival leagues.

Previously the league has tended to sell the rights to the highest bidder. But in the overseas markets it will look to make at least one package of live matches ­available to a free-to-air broadcaster in a bid to expand its reach.

Having already banked almost £2bn from domestic live rights and highlights for the three seasons from 2010-11, the Premier League is hopeful of persuading the chairmen that it is worth taking a hit in emerging markets in return for growing their reach. In any case, the overall total is still expected to top the existing £2.7bn brought in under the current deal.

They are likely to argue that not only will a longer-term approach lead to bigger returns further down the line, but will increase their own possibilities for merchandise sales, tours and other spin-off benefits. In China, the Premier League was seen as having made a strategic error by signing an exclusive deal with the pay-TV operator WinTV, available in only a handful of homes. The NBA and other football leagues, including the German Bundesliga, are available on the Chinese state ­broadcaster, CCTV.

The overseas TV deal is one of several items on a packed agenda at the AGM, including the proposals made by the league in response to culture secretary Andy Burnham’s questions on the future of the game. Chairmen will vote on new financial controls and a strengthened fit-and-proper-persons test, as well as discussing how best to implement new rules designed to promote the development of home-grown players.

Tonight will see the tenth year of the social phenomenon that is Big Brother return to our screens and any contestants hoping for a luxurious five star experience will receive a rude awakening tonight, when one by one they take the walk through the hostile crowd and into the house where they face a potential 13 weeks of hell as this year is anticipated to be the toughest Big Brother yet.

The 16 contestants, who have been kept away from the media for the past few weeks, are billed by Channel 4 as the “most diverse group yet”, coming from a number of different countries and ranging in age from 18 to 40.

But this year the eight male and eight female inhabitants of the house have been told that they are not official housemates until they have earned the title by completing a series of tasks over the next three days. Until they are officially Big Brother 10 housemates they will not receive their suitcases along with their personal belongings, the “contestants” will only have access to the Big Brother compound’s living room, which has no beds or creature comforts apart from a toilet and the garden for some much needed fresh air. The “contestants” three day torture will be compiled by only being able to wash using an outside bath, which can only be filled with cold water using a hole-ridden bucket.

Once fully fledged housemates they will be competing for a £100,000 prize. The show, which launches tonight at 9pm on Channel 4, is due to run for 13 weeks, ending at the beginning of September.

Interactive entertainment senior vice president Don Mattrick presented the sensor bar device, codenamed Project Natal, at a press conference ahead of the E3 games industry show in Los Angeles.

The Project Natal peripheral, which sits below the TV screen, incorporates a camera, depth sensor and microphone with a custom processor. It can detect and track a user’s body movement in three dimensions and, Microsoft claims that the device has the capability to recognise faces, hand gestures and speech.

 Mattrick says the device will have an impact on gaming comparable to a new generation of games machine. “We can launch a new era of entertainment without having to launch a new console,” he says.

Joining Mattrick on stage at the E3 conference, filmmaker and gamer Steven Spielberg spoke on how removing the physical control pad or remote will make gaming much more accessible.

Project Natal will make games “as approachable as all other forms of entertainment,” says Spielberg. “The vast majority of people are too intimidated to pick up a game controller.”