The Olympics open today in China to a multitude of emotions, including anger from Tibetan, Darfurian, and Burmese human rights activists about China's role in the conflicts in these countries.

By now many of you have probably read about police officer Jiang Xiaojuan of China who became a national, and then international, hero practically over night. After the devastating Chinese earthquake on May 12, the 29 year-old mother of a 6-month-old son, was called to duty. What she encountered when she reported for duty was babies crying in hunger and that's when her maternal instincts kicked in.

We can’t help but react to the death and destruction in the wake of Saturday’s cyclone in Myanmar with a sense of personal loss; the journals and photos of travelers who have visited the isolated country are some of IgoUgo’s most indelible.

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing is providing leverage for Tibetan, Darfurian, Burmese and Chinese human rights campaigns:

We have been given two pieces of communication that have been sent in secret out of Burma at great personal risk to the sender. The first describes the atmosphere in Rangoon. That is printed below. The second is a much larger piece describing the conditions in the new capital city which has been built by the junta in the middle of the jungle, far away from 'the people'.

Yesterday, Japanese videojournalist Kenji Nagai was laid to rest, nearly two weeks after being killed as he filmed Burmese soldiers firing on protestors in that nation's capital city, Rangoon. The BBC has sent another reporter undercover.

It is hard to know what is actually going on in Burma. The Burmese government has reportedly shut down all internet access and all cell phones. The Daily Mail reports hundreds, perhaps thousands of jailings and adds:

Imagine a long road lined with spectators. For as far as the eye can see, fill the road with 20,000 monks and nuns in saffron robes, walking, quietly asking for compassion from the military junta of Burma. The further they walk, the more spectators join them. Eventually the crowd is at least 100,000 strong.