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Olympic Torch paraded through Tibet

I really don't know what to say about this one. It is no shock, after major protests rocked torch-passing cities like Paris and San Francisco, that there would be an unholy clampdown on Lhasa and its environs as the torch passed through.

- Tensions simmering over torch in Tibet
"Over the weekend the Chinese Government went ahead with its controversial plan to run the Olympic torch relay through Tibet. Heavy security guaranteed there were no human rights demonstrations. Instead, the relay ended up being a rallying point for local political leaders who vowed to destroy the Dalai Lama, even as they put new touches to some of Lhasa's landmarks. Though foreigners are still banned from entering Tibet, after the violent rebellion in March a handful of journalists were allowed into Lhasa to cover the torch relay, which had been cut from three days in Tibet to three hours... " from ABC news

- Here's what the NY Times had to say about it:
"Olympic Torch’s Tibet Visit Is Short and Political
BEIJING — The visit of the Olympic torch to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, came and went in about two hours on Saturday. Leaders of the ruling Communist Party probably exhaled once the flame was trundled onto an airplane without incident and flown out of a city that only three months ago had erupted in violent anti-Chinese protests.

But if Chinese leaders were anxious to avoid protests, they did not avoid using the torch relay as a stage to again lash out at the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party secretary of Tibet, stood beneath the Potala Palace, the historic seat of the Dalai Lama, and bid farewell to the flame with a speech that at times was itself fiery. “Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it,” Mr. Zhang said, according to Reuters. “We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique.”

The broadside against the Dalai Lama punctuated an abbreviated torch relay in Lhasa that was partly broadcast on state television and that quickly brought criticism from pro-Tibetan groups outside China. For months, advocates for Tibet have demanded in vain that China not take the torch through Lhasa.

“The torch relay in Lhasa is China’s latest episode in a series of betrayals of everything the Olympics represent,” Kate Woznow, campaign director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a statement. “Parading the torch through Lhasa while Tibetans live under virtual martial law is China’s most egregious exploitation of the Games yet.”

The Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan regions of western China have been under a security crackdown since March, when violent protests broke out in Lhasa and spread. China has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the uprising, a charge he denies. Last week, he called on Tibetans not to protest when the torch passed through Lhasa."

THIS is my new country? Riots in the Tube!

Confronted with the news that drinking on the London Underground would be banned, a huge crowd turned out to have a drunken bacchanalia "one last time." And I thought Americans were nuts!

Six London Underground stations were closed as trouble flared when thousands of people marked the banning of alcohol on London transport with a party.



That's right, we need more drunken football hooligans brawling in the Tube, not less!