China faces another discontent challenge as planned garbage plant stirs protests

BEIJING - On suffocating summer nights in Wuhan city, China, the smell of burning garbage drifts through the air, so acrid that people close their windows and complain that they cannot get to sleep. And when local authorities recently tried to rush through a waste-to-energy plant to incinerate garbage, they provoked days of furious protests, in a nation where authorities are swift to crush dissent.

Protesters stayed on the streets for days, according to social media.

Wuhan's protests unfolded as unrelated demonstrations in Hong Kong shook Beijing authorities and images of Hong Kong riot police pepper-spraying young protesters gripped the world.

But both protests tell a story of the problems Chinese authorities face - containing discontent on the mainland over hot-button issues such as environmental desecration, scandals over food or medical standards