Four Tibetan youth in Drokshog township, Nangchen county, Qinghai province, were arrested July 26 by the Chinese Public Security Bureau (PSB) agents for protesting against the local Summer Festival planned by the government to celebrate the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. The four shouted slogans in the presence of a large number of local government officials at the festival's opening. Slogans included "We want freedom," "Dalai Lama return to Tibet" and "this is not the year to celebrate as Tibetans have suffered untold repression under the Chinese regime, rather it is time to mourn and offer prayers" for those killed and imprisoned. Following their detention, Drokshog residents wrote a letter to the county authorities calling for their immediate release, and an ongoing vigil was launched at the detention center. As of now, there is no further information on the four arrested Tibetans. (TCHRD, July 30)

Attackers identified as two Uighur men killed 16 members of a special border police unit in Kashgar, Xinjiang, Aug. 4. The assailants crashed a dump truck and tossed two grenades as a group of 70 police were jogging past in their regular morning drill, then jumped out and attacked other officers with knives. Kashgar is an ancient Silk Road town near China's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (and seat of the short-lived independent East Turkestan Islamic Republic, declared in 1933). The two assailants were arrested. (China Daily, Aug. 5; Radio Free Asia, BBC, Aug. 4)

The New York Times' City Room blog reports a strange spectacle from 6th Ave. July 17:

As thousands of people, mostly of Tibetan and Nepalese ancestry, streamed out of Radio City Music Hall on Thursday afternoon, where they had gone to hear the Dalai Lama give a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, they found themselves in a chaotic scene on the Avenue of the Americas.

Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have executed two Uighurs and sentenced 15 others accused of terrorist ties. The Kashgar Intermediate Court sentenced to death two men, identified as Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imi, and immediately executed them July 9. Most of the rest received prison terms ranging from 10 years to life. All were charged with being members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). (Radio Free Asia, July 12)

While the world media have moved on, Tibetans continue to defy authorities by launching protests in their homeland. According to "confirmed information" received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), several local Tibetans have been severely beaten and detained by the Chinese security forces for staging peaceful protests in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, in recent days.

Mongolia imposed a four-day state of emergency in the capital, Ulan Bator, after the opposition Democratic Party claimed fraud in last weekend's elections and violent protests broke out. Military vehicles patrolled the streets, five people were killed, and the headquarters of the "victorious" Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) was ransacked and torched. Clashes also took place in the country's second city, Darkhan. (DPA, July 1) The Wall Street Journal fears the unrest "could slow the country's economic transformation and delay investment plans of Western mining companies that have been waiting to push through deals."

Police in Tibet arrested 16 Buddhist monks and accused them of involvement in bombings on April 5, 8 and 15 in villages near Qamdo. All three bombings involved homemade explosives and caused only property damage, authorities said. (NYT, June 6) While the claims were picked up by the NY Times, ongoing harsh repression in Tibet is noted only by the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). On May 30, Chinese security forces arrested twelve monks of Dingri Shelkar Choedhe Monastery during a night raid for resisting the "patriotic re-education" campaign—meaning they had refused to denounce the Dalai Lama. (TCHRD, May 31)

Our May issue featured William Wharton's book review of A Tibetan Revolutionary, memoirs of Bapa Phuntso Wangye—a Chinese Communist Party militant who became a dissident and advocate of autonomy for his native Tibet. Our May Exit Poll was: "Will Tibet explode again during the Beijing Olympics? Is there potential for an alliance between the Tibetans and Han Chinese workers and peasants against the Beijing bureaucracy? How about between the Tibetans and the Palestinians?" We received the following response: