The Rising Cost of Weapons and Ammunition

Via: Ammo.net

Iran cracks down on student protests in universities

Iranian students are besieged by an official clampdown in the universities, with a wave of arrests and expulsions.
This pre-emptive tactic is in anticipation of a major anti-government protest to be held on Monday.

Police enforce rule
In addition, authorities are intensifying enforcement of Islamic morals on women's dress and men's hair length, to further punish and discourage political dissence and civil unrest.

Students confined to campus
Students report that authorities have cracked down at campuses nationwide, in an attempt to prevent the demonstrations from becoming widespread. Students recruited as informers by the pro-government Basij militiamen are being told to be more watchful and to inform on any classmates suspected of being pro-opposition "troublemakers."

Police Statement issued
The police warned of a tough response, especially if demonstrators try to break out of their containent area inside the campuses and into the streets. "Any gathering or ceremony outside the permitted designated places will be considered illegal and an act of provocation towards the authorities. If this happens then the police will take quick, forceful and decisive action," a statement said.

Thought Control
The crackdown was described by students as part of a widespread government campaign to control, not only internal 'security' issues but also 'open thinking and new ideas' at universities. Universities are often perceived as strongholds of revelution and reform movements in oppressive regimes. Iran believes that the universities are behind the unrest and public demonstartions that took to the streets after the disputed presidential election in June.

Courses Banned
The university curriculums have also been taken under the control of the authorities. Some courses seen as too Western-based and promoting free thinking, have been replaced with more strict "Islamic" fundamental ones, students say.

Abuse of Women
Since classes began in October at Tehran's prestigious Sharif University of Technology, members of "herasat," a feared force of guards and morals police in universities, have been instilling fear and repression by policing student behaviour. Openly stopping and abusing women at campus gates for wearing clothes that are too colourful or not all-covering enough.

Herasat's role in oppression
A herasat official uses a cellphone to photograph male students with long hair or those wearing colorful T-shirts, said Kouhyar Goudarzi. "If a student complains, he grabs his student card and says 'when you look like a human being, you will get your card back,"' he said.

"Student dissatisfaction has reached a point where it's about to explode," he said.

Expulsion as punishment
Goudarzi, a 23-year-old aerospace student, said he was expelled because he spoke to the BBC's Persian TV service about a campus demonstration in October.

Aggressive surveillance
"Six months later, the fire is still burning," said Atieh Vahidmanesh, a 24-year-old economics post-grad at Sharif University. "We are under aggressive surveillance."

"Not all our sympathisers are active themselves, many are afraid to come to the protest," said one student leader at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabei University who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of further persecution.

"We are not calling on others to participate because we don't want them to pay the high price of protest in Iran," he said.

Pro-governemnt students
Some pro-government students on campus dismiss such talk. "The western media are used to exaggerating issues," said Mahdi Eslami. "I don't feel there's been any change in the atmosphere of universities." Interestingly, the pro-government supporters have no fear of retribution from speaking to the press and are open to their names being revealed to the press.

Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a political science professor at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabaei, a leading humanities university, said "it's not a police atmosphere at the university. Students are stricly controlled, but not openly"; e.g. new students are confined to separate dorms, to shield them from 'contamination' from older, more politicised students, he said.

Dalai Lama said his death would be a great setback for Tibetan struggle

Rome (AFP) Nov 18, 2009 - The Dalai Lama said Wednesday his death would be a "setback" for Tibetans' struggle, but that he was confident the next generation would carry on his torch. The 74-year-old Nobel peace laureate said his death would be a "setback, there's no doubt" but that the struggle was not that of "just one generation."

A "very, very healthy younger generation (is) now coming up with the potential to lead," the Buddhist leader told a news conference in Rome. The Dalai Lama was in Rome to attend the fifth edition of the World Parliamentarians Convention on Tibet, also attended by US actor Richard Gere, a longtime Buddhist and arch supporter of the Tibetan cause.

Speaking on the day after US President Barack Obama urged an early resumption of talks between Beijing and envoys of the Dalai Lama, the Buddhist leader said the US government had "consistently" supported the Tibetan people.

The White House has been "very sympathetic, very supportive," he said. "All administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, are concerned about human rights violations." "Understandably, there's limitations," he added with a laugh, in an apparent reference to the complex but key bilateral relationship between Beijing and Washington.

The Dalai Lama spoke out against Chinese "communist hard-liners (who) believe power comes from the barrel of a gun." He said Tibetans were "committed to non-violence, we are not seeking separation" -- Beijing's persistent charge. The Dalai Lama has been living in India since he fled Tibet following a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops invaded the region.

The Buddhist leader said his faith in the Chinese people had "never been shaken." He said that because of Chinese government "propaganda and censorship" many Chinese people "really developed anger towards us," adding that they "have the right to know the reality."

US urging early China talks with Dalai Lama

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday addressed the thorny issue of Tibet with China's Hu Jintao, saying he backs an early resumption of talks between Beijing and representatives of the Dalai Lama.

"We did note that while we recognise that Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China, the United States supports the early resumption of dialogue" between envoys of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader and Beijing, Obama said.

The Dalai Lama fled Chinese-ruled Tibet more than 50 years ago and is seen by Beijing as a separatist seeking independence for his Himalayan homeland -- an accusation that the Buddhist monk has vehemently denied.

China has repeatedly said the door was always open for dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives, but so far sporadic talks since 2002 have failed to make progress.

The Dalai Lama's office in his home in exile in the Indian hilltown of Dharamshala said the spiritual leader was willing to engage China in further dialogue in his quest for "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet.

"We are always willing to have talks with China and we hope both sides -- the Chinese as well as the Tibetans -- are true to their intentions," Chime Chhoekyapa, spokesman of the exiled Tibetan leader, told AFP by phone.

Following foreign pressure, two envoys of the Buddhist monk met Chinese officials in Beijing in July last year for the seventh round of dialogue.

The Dalai Lama has been living in India since he fled Tibet following a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops invaded the region.

In October, he made his first visit to Washington in 18 years that did not include a meeting with the US president.

Critics of Obama said he avoided an encounter so as not to upset Beijing before his high-stakes debut visit to China.

White House aides have said the two Nobel Peace Prize winners would meet at an "appropriate time" after the president's visit to China.

In the key policy speech of his nine-day Asia trip in Japan at the weekend, Obama did not specifically mention Tibet.

China Web Sites Seeking Users' Names

China Web Sites Seeking Users' Names - NYTimes.com

BEIJING - News Web sites in China, complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users log on under their true identities to post comments.

This is the latest shift in policy that the country's Internet users and media have fiercely opposed in the past.

Until recently, users could weigh in on news items on many of the affected sites more anonymously, often without registering at all, though the sites were obligated to screen all posts, and the posts could still be traced via Internet protocol addresses.

But in early August, without notification of a change, news portals like Sina, Netease, Sohu and scores of other sites began asking unregistered users to sign in under their real names and identification numbers, said top editors at two of the major portals affected. A Sina staff member also confirmed the change.

The editors said the sites were putting into effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies responsible for supervising the Internet in China.

The new step is not foolproof, the editors acknowledged. It was possible for a reporter to register successfully on several major sites under falsified names and ID and cellphone numbers.

But the requirement adds a critical new layer of surveillance to mainstream sites in China, which were already heavily policed. Further regulations of the same nature also appeared to be in the pipeline.

And while the authorities called the measure part of a drive to forge greater 'social responsibility' and 'civility' among users, they moved forward surreptitiously and suppressed reports about it, said the editors and others in the media industry familiar with the measure, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid putting their jobs at risk.

Asked why the policy was pushed through unannounced, the chief editor of one site said, 'The influence of public opinion on the Net is still too big.'

Dalai Lama Welcomed to Taiwan: despite China's Protest

HONG KONG — The president of Taiwan said Thursday that he would allow the Dalai Lama to visit the island next week.

China opposes this viist and say that it threatens to jeopardize rapidly improving relations between Taipei and Beijing.

“No matter under what form or identity Dalai uses to enter Taiwan, we resolutely oppose this,” the China’s Taiwan Affairs Bureau said Thursday in a statement carried by the Xinhua news agency.

The Tibetan spiritual leader is expected to arrive Monday for a six-day tour of southern Taiwan, which was ravaged by Typhoon Morakot three weeks ago. It is believed that the Dalai Lama will bring comfort and peace to the victims of the flooding. At least 650 people are reported dead, in the aftermath of the storm.

The invitation to the Dalai Lama was extended by several local government leaders in the south. This was seen by analysts in Taiwan as a political maneuvre aimed at embarrassing President Ma Ying-jeou, whose approval ratings have plummeted over what is widely seen as a slow and ineffective response to the devastating typhoon.