Days after the harsh crackdown on protests in Lhasa, Chinese authorities are now arresting hundreds of Tibetans elsewhere in Tibet and Tibetan regions of neighboring Gansu and Sichuan provinces. The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy reports that in… Read moreTibet: 1,000 arrested, hundreds “disappeared”
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua March 16 quoted the 11th Panchen Lama Gyaincain Norbu harshly condemning the Tibetan uprising: “The rioters’ acts not only harmed the interests of the nation and the people, but also violated the aim of… Read moreBeijing-groomed Buddhists diss Dalai Lama
While little news is now coming out of Lhasa, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reports that at least three Tibetan protesters were shot dead by Chinese security forces March 18 during a peaceful demonstration in Kardze… Read moreTibetan protests continue; Dalai Lama calls for coexistence
On March 18, protests broke out in Ganja, a nomadic village 25 kilometers north of Labrang in Amdo (traditional Tibetan region in Gansu province), with some 2,000 marching on government township office with Tibetan flags and portraits of the Dalai… Read moreNomadic villages join Tibet uprising
A week after it began, the uprising in Tibet finally hit the front page of the New York Times March 15, with clashes reported throughout Lhasa the previous day. At the Tromsikhang market, Chinese-owned shops were burned and cars overturned…. Read moreMarital law in Tibet; clashes spread
With military vehicles patrolling Lhasa and monasteries surrounded by troops following the biggest protests in Tibet since 1989, unrest is spreading to other cities with substantial Tibetan populations. Protests are reported at Lutsang monastery in Qinghai (known in Tibetan as… Read moreTibetan uprising spreads
A Chinese passenger jet en route to Beijing from the Xinjiang region (known as Uighurstan or East Turkestan to its indigenous inhabitants, the Turkic and Muslim Uighur people) was forced to make an emergency landing March 7 after the flight… Read moreChina: Uighur militants busted; riots in Tibet
Jane’s Country Risk News reports Feb. 1 that renewed US attempts to woo Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to open his country’s vast natural gas reserves may be “too little, too late.” Russia already accounts for 97% of Turkmenistan’s gas exports…. Read moreTurkmenistan tilts to Russia, China
Wilber Funes, mayor of El Salvador’s Alegria municipality, assassinated Jan. 9. Photo: CISPES
If you still think religion isn’t political, this should disabuse you of your illusions. Ironically, the exiled Dalai Lama moves towards modernity, suggesting his successor could be elected rather than chosen by the cosmic forces of reincarnation. China, bizarrely, attempts… Read moreChina bans unauthorized reincarnation
Uzbekistan’s incumbent President Islam Karimov was unanimously nominated to run for a third seven-year presidential term this December by his Liberal Democratic Party Nov. 6. Karimov is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, and the New York Times writes… Read moreUzbek despot to become torturer-for-life?
In our last post on China, we noted that it is now the key nation falling under the rubric of the 1992 Pentagon “Defense Planning Guide” drawn up by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby which said the US must “discourage… Read moreChina emerges as “peer competitor” —in race for global oil
