Terrorist attack kills dozens in China's tense Xinjiang region - CNN.com

Terrorist attack kills dozens in China's tense Xinjiang region - CNN.com:

 "Hong Kong (CNN) -- A series of explosions tore through an open-air market in the capital of the volatile western Chinese region of Xinjiang on Thursday, killing dozens of people and wounding many more, state media reported.
China's Ministry of Public Security said the attack in the heavily policed city of Urumqi was "a serious violent terrorist incident" and vowed to crack down on its perpetrators. President Xi Jinping called for the terrorists behind it to be "severely" punished.
Two SUVs slammed into shoppers gathered at the market in Urumqi at 7:50 a.m. Thursday, and explosives were flung out of the vehicles, China's official news agency Xinhua said."

There is a video available at the web site.

A Devotion to Language Proves Risky - NYTimes.com

A Devotion to Language Proves Risky - NYTimes.com:

"BEIJING — A poet, linguist and globe-trotting polyglot, Abduweli Ayup had a passion for the spoken word, notably Uighur, the Turkic language spoken in his homeland in China’s far northwest. In 2011, soon after finishing his graduate studies in the United States, Mr. Ayup returned home to open a chain of “mother tongue” schools in Xinjiang, the vast Central Asian region whose forced marriage to the Han Chinese heartland has become increasingly tumultuous.

But in a country where language is politically fraught, Mr. Ayup’s devotion to Uighur may have proved his undoing..."

'via Blog this'  12May2014