Urumqi, China
Troops roll in: Thousands of Chinese troops poured into Xinjiang province to try to quell the violence between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese. Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim people, and Han, China’s dominant ethnic group, clashed last week in riots that the Chinese government said killed 184 people, mostly Han, and injured more than a thousand. Uighur activists dispute those figures, saying police and Han mobs killed hundreds of Uighurs. The violence has alarmed the half-million Uighurs who live in the former Soviet states of Central Asia. Activists there canceled planned protests, fearing that their governments would crack down on Uighur demonstrations to appease China.
Pyongyang
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Kim cancer report: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is suffering from pancreatic cancer and may have only months to live, a South Korean TV station reported this week. The report cited unnamed South Korean and Chinese intelligence officials. There has been no official comment from any quarter, but Kim, who is believed to have suffered a stroke last year, has been looking pale and emaciated at his rare public appearances. A South Korean newspaper reported last month that Pyongyang has been trying to import expensive medical equipment to treat the leader. Kim’s death could result in a power struggle in the nuclear-armed communist country. He has reportedly designated youngest son Kim Jong Un as his successor, but brother-in-law Chang Sung Taek commands the support of much of the military.
Swat Valley, Pakistan
Refugees trickle back: Hundreds of the people displaced by Pakistan’s offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley began returning home this week—far fewer than the government had been hoping for. The exodus of 2 million people from the region two months ago was one of the world’s largest population movements in decades. The vast majority of the refugees went to stay with relatives or host families, but about 10 percent ended up in refugee camps. Many in the camps are refusing to go back for fear of a Taliban return. It’s not an unfounded fear. The Pakistani military routed the militants from the valley, but most of the Taliban commanders reportedly survived. “Unless you eliminate the leadership,” said Pakistani defense analyst Ikram Sehgal, “however much damage you do, the command structure will manage to grow back, and low-intensity guerrilla warfare will keep going on.”
Kabul
Atrocity coverup? President Obama has ordered an inquiry into whether the Bush administration covered up the slaughter of hundreds of Taliban prisoners by a CIA-backed warlord following the 2001 U.S. invasion. It’s long been known that at least 1,000 Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the Northern Alliance, an Afghan militia group run by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, were massacred while in Dostum’s custody. But The New York Times reported last week that while officials from the FBI and the State Department had pushed for an investigation into the killings, the Bush administration nixed it because Dostum was on the CIA’s payroll. Asked about the matter on CNN, Obama said he’d ordered his national security team to “collect the facts,” and would then decide whether to call for a full-blown investigation.
Qazvin, Iran
Fatal plane crash: A passenger plane heading from Iran to Armenia crashed into a field in northwestern Iran this week, killing all 168 people on board. The Caspian Airlines plane, a Soviet-made Tupolev 154, went down 16 minutes after takeoff. Initial reports indicated the plane experienced technical problems and the pilot was trying an emergency landing. Witnesses said the plane exploded on impact. The passengers included eight members of Iran’s national youth judo team. Iranian planes have a poor safety record, and the government often blames the problems on U.S. sanctions that prevent it from getting new planes or spare parts. Caspian Airlines is a Russian-Iranian joint venture founded in 1993.
Khartoum, Sudan
Flogging women: A Sudanese journalist is challenging her country’s policy of publicly flogging women caught wearing pants, deemed a violation of Islamic sharia law. Lubna Hussein was arrested this week in a raid on a cafe along with 12 other women; 10 of them were immediately flogged. Hussein, who opted for a trial, said she wants to call attention to the arbitrary application of decency codes. “This is not a personal issue,” she said. “It concerns thousands of girls who get flogged for clothes and then become social outcasts.” The flogging of women became commonplace in Sudan after an Islamist government took over in a 1989 coup.
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