The Dali Llama

The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, spoke at a news conference Sunday in Dharamsala, India, two days after violent clashes between pro-autonomy demonstrators and Chinese security forces in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. He asked for an international probe of what he called a "cultural genocide". Tibet Watch, a group based in Dharamsala, India, said 34 people have died in the last few days.



A spokesman for the self-declared Tibetan exile government said that the death toll was much higher. They confirmed at least 80 deaths in Friday's violence and that protests were continuing outside the capital Sunday.



All of this violence is further undermining China's hopes of a smooth run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.



CNN International's live rebroadcast of the video was not blacked out by the Chinese government to viewers in that country. The government sometimes exercises its power to censor CNN's broadcast of stories sensitive to China by interrupting the broadcast as it is fed into the country. And, the Hong Kong Cable camera appeared to be pointed out a window above the area being patrolled.



The exile government said Chinese authorities had effectively imposed martial law, although it has not been officially declared. Schools, shops and businesses have been closed, it said. Home telephones and cell phones have been cut off and the movement of people is restricted. "Monasteries have been completely sealed off by the military, and remain under extremely strict surveillance," the exiles have report.



As was he case in Burma, the normally passive monks are coming out of the closet. They are being followed even as they try to move within the compounds of their monastery.



Meanwhile, internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular U.S. video Web site. The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule. In today's environment everyone is a reporter and everyone has a camera.



The Tibet crackdown has also affected YouTube.com.



Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.



The title "Dalai Lama" is presently granted to each of the spiritual leader's successive incarnations. For example, The 14th Dalai Lama's next incarnation will hold the title "the 15th Dalai Lama". Tenzin Gyatso is the name of the current Dalai Lama who was born in 1935 and began his reign in 1950.