Below The Beltway

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has hinted at the possibility of a boycott of the 2008 Olympics over China’s treatment of Tibet:
PARIS (AP) — President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested Tuesday that a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics was a possibility, making him the first world leader to raise the prospect of punishing China [...]

I don’t usually agree with Dennis Prager but he hits the nail on the head when he asks the question — Why Do Palestinians Get More Attention Than Tibetans ?
Money quote:
Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world’s oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. [...]

The Chinese announced today that they would institute so-called “patriotic education” for Tibetan monks:
BEIJING, March 25 — China’s security chief called for stepping up “patriotic education” in Tibet’s monasteries, the state-run Tibet Daily said Tuesday, as prosecutors for the first time charged demonstrators in the largely peaceful, monk-led protests that later exploded into riots in [...]

As Tibetan protests spread into China, the government crackdown is becoming more severe:
Hundreds of monks, nuns and local Tibetans who tried to march on a local government office in western China to demand the return of the Dalai Lama have been turned back by paramilitary police who opened fire to disperse the crowd.
Local residents of [...]

An Australian tourist who was caught in Lhasa, Tibet when riots erupted last week, has returned home with quite a story:
(CNN) — Australian tourist Michael Smith says he was eating lunch in a restaurant in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, on Friday when he heard an explosion and saw smoke.
As armored vehicles and trucks carrying Chinese [...]

In the wake of China’s crackdown against Tibetan protesters, calls are growing for some kind of international response:
PARIS (AP) - Moves to punish China over its handling of violence in Tibet gained momentum Tuesday, with a novel suggestion for a mini-boycott of the Beijing Olympics by VIPs at the opening ceremony.
Such a protest by world [...]

In response to Chinese repression in Tibet:
France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the European Union should consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if violence continues in Tibet.
The head of the European parliament and media watchdog Reporters Without Borders are calling Tuesday for such a boycott. Kouchner says the proposal is “interesting.”
Kouchner is [...]

Slowly but surely, the truth is coming out:
Michael D. Manning, who runs the news blog “The Opposite End of China,” has posted photos of protesting monks at the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe in Tibet and captioned the photos with the word “Labr@ng.”
The China Digital Times, based in Berkeley, California, [...]

The New York Times has an excellent article today exploring how China created the environment that has led to the unrest we are seeing in Tibet:
[T]o many Tibetans and their sympathizers, the weeklong uprising against Chinese rule in Lhasa reflects years of simmering resentment over Beijing’s interference in Buddhist religious rites, its tightened political control [...]

The Chinese may be surpressing YouTube for their own citizens, but the rest of the world can still see what’s going on.
Here’s a report from Al Jazeera (H/T: Vodkapundit)

And one from Radio Free Asia (obviously in Chinese but the images are interesting to watch anyway)

Here’s Britain’s Sky News:

And, finally, video of a police roundup from [...]