The Uyghurs (and welcome back)

I cringe when I think of this blog because I never post and I've yet to find a way to restrict my uploading impulses to any specific topic - related or not to my life in Taiwan.

So I've redesigned. The two biggest differences to the earliest versions of this place is my twitter feed going front and center, with my del.icio.us feed top-right. The other difference is going from the two-column template provided by blogger to an adapted three-column template I googled and then tweaked the code in notepad to preserve all the widgets (it took me a long time to do that properly.) I will tinker a little more but I'm much happier already having de-emphasized the blog post.

On the news in the past week or so has been Xinjiang (aka East Turkestan.)

Here I'll put up some links to articles and blog posts I've found informative recently.

Who are the Uighurs and why are they protesting? @ Crikey

July 9, 2009 - All Eyes On Xinjiang @ the Far Eastern Economic Review.

July 11, 2009 - Rumbles on the Rim of China's Empire @ The New York Times

July 13, 2009 - Xinjiang Energy Risk Rises w/ a flash sidebar Who are the Uyghurs? @ Radio Free Asia

Death, Repression and Political Violence in Xinjiang @ the International Centre For The Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.

Why China Has Clenched Its Fist In Xinjiang & Urumqi unrest:China's Saavier Media Strategy@ The Christian Science Monitor

July 15, 2009 - Toy Factory Melee Set Off Western China Violence @ New York Times

China: Urumqi mass incident and beyond @ Global Voices.

And here's a nice video on the subject (via The Uyghurs: Persecuted Muslim Minority in NorthWest China @ Global Voices.)