protests that would make st. pat proud

LAT: Tibetan protests, Chinese repression like whack-a-mole
"The Chinese have deployed thousands of troops from the paramilitary People's Armed Police and the People's Liberation Army. But just as soon as the troops stamp out one protest, another pops up...The violence was seeping outside Tibet proper into parts of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces with large ethnic Tibetan minorities."
WP: Chinese actions appear to have popular support
"The Dalai Lama, now 72, led a violent uprising with help from the Central Intelligence Agency after Chinese troops reimposed rule from Beijing in 1950. The subversion campaign failed, and he was forced in 1959 to flee on horseback to India, where he has lived in exile for half a century. It was to mark the anniversary of his dramatic flight over the Himalayas that anti-China demonstrations in Lhasa got started last Monday...
Tibet, a 750,000-square-mile territory sitting between the Himalayan and Kun Lun mountain ranges, was more or less part of various Chinese empires over the centuries, paying fealty but often too remote to be totally controlled. With the Dalai Lama as its leader, however, Tibet governed itself as an independent nation while China was torn by the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century. So for Beijing officials and the public they have educated through propaganda, the Dalai Lama is less a devout Buddhist than a secessionist rebel."

Gdn: Serbs take court in Kosovo, clash with UN forces
"Mitrovica's 40,000 Serbs are militantly opposed to Kosovan independence and, backed by Belgrade, they are bent on partitioning the province and taking over the police and judicial institutions in the north."

NYT: decision to disband military taken by Bremer and Bush without consultation
NYT: (op-ed) Bremer doesn't think that's his biggest mistake
NYT: (op-ed) it wasn't Perle's fault either
WP: at Congressional hearing, representatives debate the obligations of the US gov't to Iraqi refugees and IDPs
WP: Dick "the Liberator" Cheney goes to collect long-overdue flowers in person
Gdn: soldiers speaking at Iraq Veterans against the War forum know better

IHT: Shariah and (Western) rule of law

BBC: new parliament opens in Pakistan

WP: violence in Kenya's Rift Valley organized by opposition, says HRW report
"'This was not done by ordinary citizens, it was arranged by people with money,' said one young man who took part in the attacks, according to the report. 'They brought the jobless like me. We need something to eat each day.'"

Ind: ivory funds warlords in the DRC, Sudan and Chad, Somalia
BBC: violence in usually (relatively) stable western DRC
Bundu Dia Kongo challenges central state authority; police are trying to disband its militia

Gdn: (book excerpt) marijuana trade in Canada
BBC: coca and cocaine labs discovered in Brazilian Amazon for first time

IHT: families sue Chiquita over 1993 deaths of loved ones in Urabá, Colombia
"The 63-page complaint asserts that Chiquita provided 'numerous and substantial hidden payments' to [the FARC] in addition to weapons and supplies. That financing, the plaintiffs say, contributed to the deaths of the five men because Chiquita had in fact supported 'acts of terrorism.'"

IHT: the changing patterns of sex work
Slate: Venkatesh outlines the new tiers

New Yorker: washboarding is not torture. it's just really really irritating

Slate: raise a glass today for St Patrick today, even if you're not sure why