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."

Forty Tajik soldiers were killed Sept. 19 in an ambush by suspected militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The soldiers were part of a 75-man convoy moving through the Rasht Valley, an area known as a haven for Islamists insurgents. Five officers are reported to have been among the 40 soldiers killed. No insurgents were reported killed. The soldiers were searching for members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who escaped from a prison in Dushanbe on Aug. 25. One guard was killed during the jailbreak.

Four people were detained Aug. 25 for a deadly attack on Chinese military police last week in the far western region of Xinjiang, state media reported. In the Aug. 19 attack, a member of the Uighur minority apparently rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a checkpoint at a highway intersection near the city of Aksu, some 400 miles west of the provincial capital Urumqi and 37 miles from China's border with Kyrgyzstan. Six police were killed and 15 injured in the first major terrorist attack in China since 2008. (Reuters, Aug. 25; CSM, People's Daily, Aug. 19)

In a New York Times op-ed Aug. 26, "China's Discreet Hold on Pakistan's Northern Borderlands," Selig S. Harrison of the Center for International Policy writes that Islamabad has effectively handed over de facto control of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to Beijing. Although the region is largely closed to the outside world, Harrison cites reports indicating a "simmering rebellion against Pakistani rule and the influx of an estimated 7,000 to 11,000 soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army." He describes the development as "a quiet geopolitical crisis" in the Himalayan borderlands of contested Kashmir.

China has jailed three Uighur website operators as it clamps down on dissent a year after deadly ethnic riots in Xinjiang, according to reports. An exiled activist group, the Uyghur American Association (UAA), said the three men were sentenced to 10, five and three years respectively. They were identified as Dilshat Perhat, webmaster of Diyarim website; Nureli of Salkin website; and Nijat Azat, of Shabnam. The websites, among the most popular in the Uighur language, were blocked by the Chinese authorities last year. UAA quoted a brother of one of the men saying they were sentenced last week. Officials have not confirmed the charges or the sentences. (BBC News, July 30)

Earlier this month, Tibetan environmentalist Rinchen Samdrup was sentenced to five years in prison by a Chinese court, found guilty of inciting separatism by posting a pro-Dalai Lama article on his website. Samdrup, the third brother in his family to be jailed, told the Changdu Intermediate People's Court that he did not post the article himself. His lawyer, Xia Jun, was quoted as saying: "It was a mistake, but not a crime." The website is devoted to protecting the environment in the Himalayan region.

Eyewitness accounts confirm that Chinese security forces used disproportionate force and acted with deliberate brutality in the wave of Tibetan protests that began on March 10, 2008, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. The report charges that many violations continue today, including disappearances, wrongful convictions and imprisonment, persecution of families, and the targeting of Tibetans suspected of sympathizing with the protest movement.