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Foreign Journalists Take Official Tour of Tibetan Capital


Chinese authorities have taken a 17-member delegation of foreign journalists on an official tour of Tibet's capital, Lhasa, which erupted in anti-government protests and rioting last year.

China's official Xinhua news agency says the journalists toured monasteries, schools and the railway station.

Xinhua says the journalists also talked with Buddhist monks, students and other Tibetans.

Xinhua quotes a top Communist Party official in the region, Gumbo Tashi, as saying Chinese authorities expected foreign journalists to "see and feel Tibet by their own."

But the Associated Press describes the four-day tour that began Thursday as tightly scripted.

An AP report says paramilitary police who patrol the city's Tibetan quarter wore black and yellow track suits instead of their normal uniforms.

According to AP, Gumbo Tashi told the reporters that some security personnel had been relocated for the convenience of visiting reporters.

In separate news, Tibetan exile sources report that Tibetans clashed with Han Chinese miners in a village near Lhasa as the tour was under way.

The India-based Tibetan government in exile and other Tibetan exile sources say at least three Tibetans were injured in the clash on Saturday.

The reports say Tibetans in Gyama township were demonstrating against attempts to divert a river to the mining site.

Members of farming communities that rely on the Gyama River for irrigation also reportedly held a protest on Monday.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.


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