Thai security officials on Monday proposed extending a state of emergency imposed across about a third of the country, including Bangkok, in response to opposition protests that turned deadly.

Washington, DC. July 1, 2010.  Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, told a hushed audience yesterday at NED headquarters in Washington, D.C. "not to despair" in the face of the Chinese Communist government's  repression of Uyghur people and culture.  "despair only leads to violence, while hope inspires progress."

Washington, D.C. – Today, Freedom Now released Opinion No. 12/2010 from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The judgment from this international tribunal unequivocally reestablishes that the ongoing detention of Burmese democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is illegal and in violation of international law.

The Pentagon's military-exchange program with China for 2010 was canceled earlier this year because of Beijing's anger at arms sales to Taiwan, and military ties remain in deep freeze after the unusually combative exchange in Singapore last week between a Chinese general and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

The “worst of the worst,” as Washington-based human rights watchdog Freedom House calls them, is comprised of nine countries and one territory: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tibet.

The “Free Tibet” bumper stickers may have faded since the 1990s, but for Samdhong Rinpoche, Buddhist scholar and Tibet’s prime minister-in-exile, the issue remains as clear as ever.