News Sources: China Cracks Down on Tibet

China sought on Wednesday to contain ongoing protests in its ethnic Tibetan regions, as it stepped up detentions in Tibet's capital Lhasa and vowed tighter control over monasteries. The Tibet unrest -- and China's response to it -- has also become a lightning rod for criticism of its Communist authorities ahead of the Beijing Olympics, marring the country's desire to use the Games as a "coming out" party. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges and universities, including the following: (click on names for contact information):

Charlene Makley - Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Reed College - Makley received a Fulbright Scholar Award to study the processes through which Tibetans in eastern Qinghai province are responding to China's "Develop the West" campaign.

Daniel G. Cozort - Associate Professor of Religion and Chairperson, Dickinson College - Cozort has written four books on Tibetan Buddhism, and has lived and worked in Tibetan monasteries during visits to India.

Marc Blecher - Professor of Politics, Oberlin College - Blecher has written four books on China, most recently China Against the Tides: Restructuring Through Revolution, Radicalism, and Reform. His research on workers' politics in China is based on interviews and surveys conducted there.

African Poverty Linked to Agricultural Technology

People in Africa are poor because their labor as farmers has not yet been improved by science, including modern biotechnology. That's the overall conclusion of a new book by Wellesley College professor of political science Robert Paarlberg. He says U.S. foreign assistance to agricultural science in Africa has fallen by 75 percent in the past two decades, he notes, and the foreign assistance of European governments is now often predicated on staying away from modern agricultural science.

News Sources: Kenyan Riots

Police battled rampaging youths in western Kenya as ethnic clashes that have left more than 100 people dead in the past four days spread across the country. Tribal violence has killed nearly 900 people there since elections last month. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

The Hon. Joseph Melrose - Professor of Politics and International Relations, Ursinus College - Melrose retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2002, after three decades in the Foreign Service, most recently as Ambassador to Sierra Leone, where he helped broker a peace treaty. In the fall of 2006 he served as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the 61st United Nations General Assembly for the State Department. He also led the Foreign Emergency Support Team, deployed to Nairobi, Kenya in the aftermath of the Embassy bombings, where he helped oversee the reestablishment of Embassy operations and the recovery effort.

Kevin Dunn - Assistant Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges - Dunn specializes in the politics and development in Africa, theories of international relations and U.S. foreign policy. He has investigated how theory and practice in international relations differ-with particular attention paid to U.S. foreign policy toward underdeveloped nations. Dunn co-edited Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory.

Eve Sandberg - Associate Professor of Politics, Oberlin College - Sanberg is an expert on contemporary African affairs, political economies of developing nations and international relations. She has given talks for the USIA, Council on African Studies at Yale and Columbia and she edited The Changing Politics of Non-Governmental Organizations and African States.

News Sources: Chill in Japan-China Relations

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for a "broader Asia" partnership of democracies that would include India, the United States and Australia but leave out the region's superpower, China. Meanwhile, Tokyo has sought to build closer security ties with the United States, Australia and India, and its navy is due to take part for the first time in joint U.S.-India exercises to be held in the Bay of Bengal next month. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including (click on names for contact information):

David Arase - Associate Professor of Politics, Pomona College - Arase is an expert on the economics, politics and security of Japan and the economic cooperation and regional security relations between China, Japan, Russia, and North Korea. He is the author of Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japanese Foreign Aid.

Frank Gibney - Professor of Politics, Pomona College - One of America's foremost experts on East Asia and Asian/Pacific Affairs, Gibney is founder and president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College and was the producer of the acclaimed PBS series, "The Pacific Century." The author of several books, he is fluent in Japanese and continues to travel throughout Asia.

Bin Yu - Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wittenberg University - An expert on China's foreign policy, Yu is a fellow at the East-West Center, president of Chinese Scholars of Political Science and International Studies and a faculty associate of the Mershon Center. Yu is also a MacArthur fellow at the Center of International Security and Arms Control and a research fellow at Center of International Studies, Beijing

Chinese-Style Capitalism Feeds Product Recalls

China's complex system of "guanxi," or relationships, involves using personal networks and granting and returning favors to do business. Colgate University sociologist Carolyn Hsu says guanxi has fueled China's extraordinary economic growth, but it has also taken the place of binding contracts and government quality controls and has led to a series of China-based product recalls that have rocked international markets in recent weeks.

News Sources: Russia Plants Flag at North Pole

The United States and Canada have scoffed at a Russian submarine expedition that planted a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole. The recent dive by two small submarines was partly a scientific expedition. But it could mark the start of a fierce legal scramble for control of the seabed and what could be vast energy reserves beneath among nations that border the Arctic, including Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark, through its territory Greenland. Reporters looking for sources to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading lberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Nick Hayes - Professor of History, Saint John's University - Hayes, who holds a doctorate in Russian and European history, won an Emmy in 1991 for his work on Russia. He has published widely in the academic press and appeared in popular press, including ABC "Nightline" and CBS "Sunday Morning."

Larry Caldwell - Gamble Professor of Political Science, Occidental College - A former visiting professor at the National War College, scholar-in-residence in the CIA's Office of Soviet Analysis, and RAND consultant, Caldwell is an expert on Russian-American relations, Russian politics and military, and arms control who has testified before Senate and House committees.

Michael T. Klare - Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, Hampshire College - Hayes is the author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum. He is director of the Five College (Hampshire, Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke Colleges and the University of Massachusetts) Program in Peace and World Security Studies. Hayes testifies regularly on arms issues before international organizations, including the United Nations, and is on the Committee on International Security Studies, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.