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 Lama. Residents at the nearby nomadic village of Songkok stormed local government offices, shouting anti-China slogans. Protesters from Amchok village began a cross-country march towards Labrang but were halted by the People's Armed Police. (Phayul, March 18) Some 600 monks from Amchok Tsenyi monastery staged a protest outside the local government office in Tsenyi, a village in Ngaba Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. (Phayul, March 18)

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. At least two were killed when police fired on crowds in the city's Barkhor district. A tourist bus was torched outside the Ramoche temple, where monks clashed with police and protesters waved traditional white scarves, chanting "Free Tibet." Beijing is said to be bringing in military police troops, as well as dispatching them to other parts of China with significant Tibetan populations—such as the sacred city of Bamei, Sichuan. BBC News says Chinese authorities put the total dead at 10, but the BBC World Service reported early the 16th that the Dalai Lama says he has received reports of up to 100 dead. He also rejects official Chinese assertions that martial law has not been declared. "I have the feeling this is like in 1959, after the 10th of March... I fear more killing, more suffering."

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 Amdo), with hundreds of monks chanting slogans calling for return of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. According to the Free Tibet campaign, 100 monks from Myera monastery in Gansu also staged a protest. Scattered gunfire was reported around Lhasa March 13. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the protesters are "seeking to spark social turmoil." He told a press conference: "This was carefully planned by the Dalai clique in a bid to separate Tibet and sabotage Tibetan people's normal life of stability and harmony." (The Guardian, March 13)

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 crew prevented at least two passengers from trying to crash the airplane, state media reported. Meanwhile, Chinese officials announced that a police raid in January against an alleged terrorist group in Xinjiang had uncovered materials that proved the group was plotting an attack on the upcoming Beijing Olympics. (IHT, March 9)

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. Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan signed an agreement in December to build a gas pipeline along the edge of the Caspian Sea, through the Russian network. The plan could undermine US plans for a trans-Caspian pipeline to the Caucasus. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Turkmenistan in November, and Berdymukhammedov reiterated plans to export gas to China through a pipeline due to come online in 2009. Berdymukhammedov has also refused to rule out the possibility of a trans-Caspian pipeline, however.

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 to play a Tibetan fundamentalist card against the Dalai Lama, insisting that the ancient ways be honored—as long as the cosmic forces submit to Beijing's will, of course. From the BBC, Nov. 28, emphasis added:

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 that "election officials have not yet explained the legal mechanism justifying his nomination." (NYT, Nov. 7; Interfax, Nov. 6) Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch is urging the UN Committee Against Torture, now convening in Geneva, to condemn Uzbekistan for flagrantly violating the global ban on torture. In a 90-page report issued Nov. 7, "Nowhere to Turn: Torture and Ill-Treatment in Uzbekistan," HRW accuses the Uzbek government of using a wide range of methods against detainees, including beatings with truncheons, asphyxiation with plastic bags and gas masks, electric shocks, and sexual humiliation. HRW director Juliette De Rivero said that ill treatment of detainees in Uzbekistan is "endemic." (RFE/RL, Nov. 7)

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 advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." In our last post on the global struggle for control of oil, we noted that the national company PetroChina is rapidly gaining on Exxon as the world's largest oil company. Now, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, after meeting in Beijing with his counterpart, Gen. Cao Gangchuan, tells a news conference he had raised "the uncertainty over China's military modernization and the need for greater transparency to allay international concerns." In its coverage of the meeting, the New York Times Nov. 6 said "Pentagon officials describe China as a 'peer competitor'..." An analysis on the visit in the previous day's edition quoted Michael J. Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies saying, "If you are sitting in the Pentagon, China is a potential peer competitor."