“Apple Inc.’s iTunes online music store is back up and running again in China after it was apparently blocked last week by local authorities,” Verne Kopytoff reports for The San Francisco Chronicle.

“However, the Web page for downloading a pro-Tibet album, which is suspected of prompting the crackdown, remains unavailable on the service,” Kopytoff reports.

“Chinese users started having problems logging in to iTunes last week, immediately raising suspicions that the Beijing government was trying to censor ‘Songs for Tibet,’ an album released by the Art of Peace Foundation, an organization that supports Tibetan independence,” Kopytoff reports.

“China has long walled off Web sites that diverge from the official position on topics including Tibet, Taiwan and the Tiananmen Square protests,” Kopytoff reports.

“Cupertino’s Apple has no iTunes stores specifically for China. Instead, Chinese Internet users must visit the U.S. site or those for other countries,” Kopytoff reports. “In addition to being inaccessible on iTunes, the ‘Songs for Tibet‘ album cannot be reached from China on Amazon.com or Google’s YouTube video service.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: “Songs for Tibet” can be found via the U.S. iTunes Store here. Funds raised from the album will go to support peace initiatives and Tibetan cultural preservation projects important to the Dalai Lama.