Some 40 exiled Tibetans have been arrested in Nepal over the past week, in a crackdown against refugees attempting to celebrate the Buddhist religious festival of Saka Dawa in the capital Kathmandu. Hundreds of Tibetan refugees gathered to celebrate Saka Dawa; the birthday of Buddha, in the capital Kathmandu. The festivities, which were repeatedly shut down by the police, included candle-light vigils for Tibetans recently detained in a new wave of protests within the People's Republic of China.

A Tibetan writer was sentenced to four years in prison last month after helping edit a publication critical of Chinese policy in the restive region, the UK-based International Campaign for Tibet said July 1. Tashi Rabten, an editor of banned journal Eastern Snow Mountain (Shar Dungri), was sentenced on June 2 by a court in Aba prefecture, a largely ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province. The literary magazine was suppressed after running a series of essays on the unrest and repression in Tibet in 2008. Copies of the journal were among books seized and burnt by security personnel at a school in the Ngaba area in April of this year. (Reuters, July 2; International Campaign for Tibet, July 1)

Chinese authorities have tightened security across the province of Inner Mongolia after days of unrest, which began last week when a Mongol herdsman was killed by a coal truck as a group of traditional herders sought to block a convoy from crossing their pastureland. Hundreds of riot police armed with batons have been posted at the main square in provincial capital Hohhot. Access to the internet has been blocked in some areas, and universities and schools are under close watch. "Students were closely monitored by their teachers and security personnel inside the campuses," the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) said in an e-mailed statement. China accused unspecified "foreign forces" of trying to exploit protests by ethnic Mongolian students, but the government also pledged to address the underlying issues—the mining industry's rapid expansion and its impact on the environment.

Lobsang Sangay, the newly elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, met May 12 with three Tibetan activists on indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi to protest against a Chinese crackdown at the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province. The activists are members of the Tibetan Youth Congress, which says the aim of the hunger strike—now in its 18th day—is to press for the immediate withdrawal of Chinese security forces from the monastery and the unconditional release of all Tibetan political prisoners, including those recently arrested in Sichuan's Ngaba county. They are also demanding that a TYC delegation be granted access to Tibet to assess the situation of political prisoners there. Sangay, who is due to take office in August, was a leading member of the TYC during his college years in New Delhi.

The Dalai Lama announced on March 10 that he will step down as political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala, India. "As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," he said in a prepared speech. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect." At present, the 14th Dalai Lama has a dual political and spiritual role. He will now retire as political leader, while retaining his function as the head of the Gelup School of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet's spiritual leader. The announcement came on the 52nd anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising.

An ethnic Uighur website editor was sentenced to seven years in prison in China after a secret trial, Amnesty International said March 7. Tursunjan Hezim, a 38-year-old former history teacher, was reportedly detained shortly after the July 2009 protests in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Tursanjan Hezim ran a popular Uighur-language website, Orkhun, which covered local history and culture until it was shut down shortly after the protests. His family was never informed of the charges against him and his whereabouts remain unknown. The government has not publicly stated the grounds for his detention. (Amnesty International, March 7)

The indigenous Evenk people in north Siberia have launched a campaign against Russian energy giant Gazprom's plans for a pipeline through their territory, which they say threatens their traditional hunting and fishing grounds. The planned pipeline, which will link the Yakutia Republic's Chayandinskoye oil and gas field with the Far Eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk, is to be developed near an Evenk settlement.

India's government this week publicly objected to any Chinese firm or consortium being given contracts related to the building of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. About 735 kilometers of the proposed pipeline will pass through Afghanistan and another 800 through Pakistan. The gas sales agreement for the pipeline is slated to be signed this April, and India's stance may complicate matters. The Asian Development Bank has insisted on a role for Chinese firms, since these have "experience in building such long pipelines in a short time."