Overseas media cover Urumqi riot

URUMQI: On Monday, Beijing-based journalist Henrik Bork was debating whether to find his own way to Xinjiang to cover the riot when he received an e-mail from the Chinese government.

An overseas journalist works in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's  Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 8, 2009. More than 80 media  of 17 countries and regions have sent over 100 journalists to Urumqi  after a riot broke out in the city on July 5. The riot has left 156  people dead and 1,080 others injured. (Xinhua/Xu Liang)

The message, from the State Council Information Office, not only welcomed him to Urumqi, it listed phone numbers of people from the local information department he could contact.

He immediately went to the airport.

"I get a lot of invitations for press conferences from the Chinese authorities, but this is the first time for me to be invited on a reporting trip in such a timely fashion," says Bork, a correspondent for Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung who has worked for more than eight years in China.

"Usually in such circumstances I would try to go by myself and see how far I can get, but this time I am positively surprised that we can get some help from the authorities," he said.