INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Tumult In Tibet

The biggest demonstrations in Tibet in twenty years have focused the world's attention on the Chinese government's rule over that country. On March 10, protests began in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to mark the 49th anniversary of the failed Tibetan revolt against the Chinese Communist occupation and the Dalai Lama's flight into exile. On March 14, after police surrounded Lhasa's principal monasteries and arrested scores of Buddhist monks, the demonstrations soon escalated into random acts of violence against non-ethnic Tibetan residents, such as Han Chinese and Muslims. Witnesses said Tibetan rioters "set fire to large numbers of Han-owned businesses as well as a mosque." Qin Gang, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, initially tried to downplay the unrest as "a few monks in Lhasa [making] some disturbances." Despite strict controls over the flow of information out of Tibet and the surrounding areas, even the Chinese government could no longer deny the violence spilling over into surrounding areas. Riots spread to the neighboring province of Gansu on March 18, with demonstrators trying to storm a government office as "roughly 100 armed troops repelled the protesters with tear gas." Tibet's government-in-exile has said 140 people were killed in the unrest, while China has claimed a total of 20 deaths, 19 of them in Lhasa. The Chinese government "accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating Tibetan riots to wreck Beijing's Olympic Games." On March 20, speaking in Dharamsala, the town in northern India that is the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the Dalai Lama called for calm and said that he was prepared to meet with Chinese leaders, but China has denied any such possibility. The Dalai Lama has stated that he wants autonomy, not independence, for Tibet.

HISTORY OF CONFLICT: Writer Wen Lao suggests that the Chinese government has been troubled by the "Kosovo precedent" and fears what may result from any agitation by Tibetans for independence. Tibet's relationship with China goes back at least to the 7th century. Chinese Communist forces invaded and occupied it in 1950, and forced the Tibetan government to accept a treaty ratifying Chinese control of the country in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. China's current president, Hu Jintao, served as Communist Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region from 1989 through 1992, overseeing a police crackdown and imposing martial law in response to a series of demonstrations in 1989 that called for democratic reform. Though the Chinese government considers Tibet to be part of China, Tibetans have resisted cultural and political assimilation. China has defended its rule over Tibet as a beneficial "civilizing mission" and has accused the Dalai Lama of having run a primitive, feudal society before the Chinese "liberation." Activists and scholars have noted the effort by the Chinese government to bring ethnic Chinese in to Tibet to change the demographic character of the region, a process accelerated by the completion of a Beijing-Llasa railway. The Dalai Lama has accused the Chinese government of attempting to erase Tibetan history through a campaign of "cultural genocide." Tibetan human rights groups have also documented Chinese exploitation of Tibet's natural resources and damage to its environment, noting that China has been "building large-scale infrastructure projects" that are "destroying the fragile Tibetan grasslands and displacing pastoral nomads."

SPOTLIGHT ON BEIJING OLYMPICS: Human rights activists have long made it known that they intended to use the Beijing Olympics to draw global attention to the Chinese government's record of human rights abuses. On Feb. 12, the Beijing Olympics suffered a public relations hit when director Steven Spielberg withdrew from his role as artistic adviser to the games in protest against China’s backing for Sudan's policy in Darfur. Despite heavy security, protesters broke through a police cordon at the March 24 torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia, Greece, unfurling "a banner showing the Olympic rings as handcuffs to protest human rights abuses in China" during Beijing Games chief Liu Qi's speech before being arrested by Greek police. Pro-Tibetan protesters also tried to stop the torch's relay as it was carried from the site. Activists have also called upon individual athletes to stage protests during the games. Human rights activist Wei Jingsheng wrote in the Washington Post that "if the IOC doesn't move to put pressure on Beijing consistent with its obligations" to improve human rights, "it risks this Olympics being remembered like the 1936 Games in Berlin," a massive public relations boost for an oppressive regime.

HUMAN RIGHTS PROMOTION: Though the U.S. State Department's recent report did not name China among the world's worst human rights offenders, it did state that the Chinese "government's human rights record remained poor," and specifically mentioned China's Tibet policy. On March 21, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), one of the fiercest congressional critics of China, was greeted by cheering Tibetans as she arrived to meet the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala. Pelosi "called on the world to denounce China's crackdown of anti-government protests in Tibet." Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called the Tibetan crackdown "needless [and] inhumane." In response to criticisms from the United States, the Chinese government accused the country of human rights hypocrisy, calling the invasion of Iraq the "greatest humanitarian disaster" of the modern era. In a report released by the state Xinhua news agency, China stated that America's "arrogant critique on the human rights practices of other countries are always accompanied by a deliberate ignoring of serious human rights problems on its own territory. ... 'Secret prison' and 'torturing prisoners' have become synonymous with America." China's response indicates the extent to which Bush administration policies have seriously undermined one of America's greatest weapons, its moral credibility.

Under the Radar

ECONOMY -- NEW SOCIAL SECURITY TRUSTEE REPORT SHOWS PROGRAM IS NOT IN CRISIS: Yesterday, the Social Security trustees released their annual report on the state of the trust fund. As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes today, it is "a bit ceremonial" for Bush administration officials to warn "about entitlement calamity" every year when the report is released. Almost on cue, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced yesterday that "rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels, consume nearly all projected federal revenues and threaten America's future prosperity." Conservatives in Congress joined in as well, with House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) issuing a statement claiming that the new report proves there is a Social Security "crisis." But the report actually shows something quite different, according to Center For American Progress Action Fund Domestic Policy Adviser James Kvaal, who wrote yesterday that "the report is an important reminder that the program is not in a crisis." "While we need reforms to extend the life of Social Security, we do not need to panic and adopt massive benefit cuts," writes Kvaal. Economist Paul Krugman agrees with Kvaal, writing on his blog yesterday that the report shows that "the actuarial balance has been improving rather than worsening" and that "Social Security's financial problem is relatively minor."

ADMINISTRATION -- CHENEY DEFIES INTELLIGENCE, CLAIMS IRAN IS SEEKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS: During a recent interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney said "obviously" Iran is "heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels." But that comment contradicts a key finding from the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran -- that the Iranians halted its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disagrees with Cheney as well. The IAEA's latest report on Iran's nuclear program notes that "Iran is enriching uranium at its plant in Natanz to less than 3.8 [percent], which is the level necessary to create fuel for a civilian reactor. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 80 [percent] or 90 [percent]." Cheney's claim echoes President Bush's recent false assertion that Iran "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people." While the Iran NIE also contradicts that claim, Iran has never "declared" its intention to acquire nuclear weapons and in fact, it has publicly stated the opposite. 

ENVIRONMENT -- NORQUIST SAYS NEW CAFE STANDARDS ARE DEADLY: Last December, President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 into law, which slowly raises corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to 35 mpg by 2020. Citing a government report on the David Strom Show on March 22, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist attacked the bill, claiming that "more people will die" because of these CAFE standards. A 2002 National Academies report on the Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards did conclude "that the downweighting and downsizing that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of which was due to CAFE standards, probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993." However, the minority dissent in that report found that "the relationships between vehicle weight and safety are complex and not measurable with any reasonable degree of certainty at present. The relationship of fuel economy to safety is even more tenuous." The committee also found that automakers' responses "could be biased" when they said it may not be possible to reduce vehicle weight without reducing vehicle size by using lighter materials.

Think Fast

Heavy fighting continued for a second day in two of Iraq's largest cities as Iraqi security forces clashed with militias connected to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. In the southern city of Basra, 40 people have been killed and 200 wounded, according to a spokesman for the Iraqi military. In response, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has issued a 72-hour ultimatum for gunmen in Basra to surrender.

Air Force lawyer Col. Morris Davis, "who quit as chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay war court five months ago because of what he called political interference has asked to leave the U.S. military." Morris said that "he submitted retirement papers last week, because of fallout from his criticism of the Guantanamo court and because of family concerns."

Scientists said yesterday that a chunk of ice seven times the size of Manhattan collapsed off the Wilkins Ice Shelf in western Antarctica. "The event is a result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan."

A new analysis by Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. finds that "Wall Street banks, brokerages and hedge funds may report $460 billion in credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, or almost four times the amount already disclosed."

The USA Today writes that the different proposals among the candidates' health plans boil down to three issues: "Who gets health insurance, how should they get it and who pays." "McCain's ideas could continue to leave millions of people without insurance, they say, and could increase the number of employers dropping or limiting health plans."

Exxon Mobil has "regained the mantle as the world's biggest company by market value," overtaking PetroChina Co. Exxon raked in $40.6 billion in profits last year, "the biggest ever for a U.S. company."

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) wants to scrap the 2005 Real ID Act, the anti-terrorism law that "mandated that states adopt uniform federal standards for driver's licenses." "It wasn't properly considered in the Senate, it creates a national ID card, and it's a massive unfunded mandate," he said.

And finally: A new study by the New England Historic Genealogical Society finds that both Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) have famous relatives. Clinton is distantly related to Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Celine Dion, and Jack Kerouac, whereas Obama has ties to both Bushes, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison. McCain is a sixth cousin of First Lady Laura Bush, but is not, as he has claimed in the past, related to the Scottish king Robert the Bruce.

Good News

"In academic and industrial labs worldwide, researchers are working on technologies to reach" the goal of being "carbon negative," removing more CO2 than they produce.

State Watch

MARYLAND: The House of Delegates "agreed yesterday to encourage more working-poor families to enroll their children in a state health insurance program but stopped short of mandating enrollment."

ALASKA: "A controversial land swap proposal could open portions of an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling."

CIVIL RIGHTS: Affirmative action opponents "are pushing five more states to ban the practice."

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) forced to retract troop level prediction after Gen. David Petraeus contradicts him.

WONK ROOM: Escalation architect Fred Kagan doubles down on his claim that sectarian cleansing in Baghdad is a "myth."

OPEN SOCIETY: Open Society Institute invites innovative thinkers to confront global challenges.

SHAME ON ELAINE: Send a message to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao about how she has "done horrible damage to worker's rights."

Daily Grill

"Newly declassified documents captured in Iraq show that Saddam Hussein's regime had extensive ties with a variety of Islamist and other terrorist groups."
-- Washington Times, 3/24/08

VERSUS

"This study found no 'smoking gun' (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and Al-Qaeda."
-- Pentagon study, 3/13/08

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