Zhang Renliang (张仁良), the former Jing'an district chief who was sacked last year in the wake of the devastating 2010 fire that ravaged an apartment building, killing 58 and injuring 71, has been given a political resurrection with his new appointment as deputy party secretary of Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture. Zhang's new job comes just seven months after he was sacked from Jingan district, along with dozens of other officials that were either replaced, punished or jailed. more ›

This notice put up by the Huayuan Road Public Security Bureau in Beijing's Haidian district requests owners of hotels and bathhouses in the neighbourhood to ensure that all Tibetan and Uyghur guests are reported to them. Business owners are also to ensure thorough identification and verification of the ethnicity of all guests, according to the notice. more ›

PetroChina's Xinjiang branch is currently embroiled in a so-called "Luxury Car Gate" scandal over their fleet of imported luxury SUVs. Netizens reacted angrily to the news of PetroChina Xinjiang's fleet of Audis, Range Rovers and VW Touregs, but when PetroChina attempted to smooth things over, their half-assed explanation only made things much, much worse. more ›

China experienced two moderate earthquakes this morning. At 6:00am a 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit the border area between Sichuan and Gansu province. Only a few hours later, Yining, Xinjiang province also experienced a 5.4-magnitude earthquake at 8:21am (revised down from an earlier magnitude reading of 6.0.) While no injuries have been reported, dozens of houses were reported to have collapsed in Xinjiang. more ›

For the first time in twelve years, an outbreak of polio has struck China, infecting nine people in Xinjiang and inciting a furious scramble to vaccinate Xinjiang's at-risk migrant children. The vaccination campaign targets 3.8 million children under 15 in the outbreak area, and children younger than five in other areas of Xinjiang, as six of the nine cases are under three years old. A spooked Shanghai has also stepped up its screening procedures, requiring vaccinations for all children who did not receive them after an outbreak. Recent tests conducted on the Xinjiang polio virus have linked it to a strain currently ravaging Pakistan, which has seen over 80 confirmed cases just this year. Interestingly, China's last polio epidemic spawned when an man from another neighbor, India, carried the virus into the country in 1999. According to Oliver Rosenbauer of the World Health Organization, the strain's rapid spread can be attributed to its extreme virulence. And if that isn't fear-inducing enough, this particular virus also poses a higher risk of paralysis than other strains. more ›

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Ah, the old accoutrements of modern civilization bait n' switch! How shrewd. Reuters is reporting that the Chinese government is going to make it rain something fierce on the Tibet Autonomous Region, to the tune of 300 billion RMB ($47 billion USD) over the next four years. The figure more than doubles the 138 billion RMB spent on Tibet from 2006 to 2010. more ›

• A video of the Turkistan Islamic Party claiming responsibility for the recent attacks in Xinjiang has just been uploaded. When are all these cells just going to get together and start their own Jihadtube?
• 360buy.com is (allegedly) crossing its fingers for a $5 billion USD IPO next week, in what would be the largest internet-related IPO ever. Meanwhile, its CEO is a little coy about the whole affair, weibbing that he'll be in the middle of a desert.
• The Globe and Mail (who recently made the CCP lose major face) meditates on 9/11 and what it's meant for China.

What would summer be without an ol' fashioned Uighur repression campaign? "China announced a two-month 'strike hard' security campaign on Tuesday in the troubled western region of Xinjiang, with 24-hour police patrols of crowded areas, identity checks, street searches, increased criminal investigations and accelerated trials. The latest mobilization of the region’s security apparatus follows a five-week spate of violence that has resulted in at least three dozen deaths. A statement on Xinjiang’s Web site said that the latest campaign was aimed at 'destroying a number of violent terrorist groups and ensuring the region’s stability.'" [New York Times] more ›

According to reports from Xinhua, a group of "terrorists" attacked a police station in the city of Hotan in Xinjiang province on Monday and killed four people, including a paramilitary officer, a security guard, along with a woman and a teenage girl. Police soon retaliated and a gunfight erupted, killing between 14 to 20 people (China Daily puts the total shot at 14, Sina says 14 dead, while the Global Times says the casualty total was "unidentified"). more ›

You may remember Shanghai human rights lawyer Li Tiantian (李天天), who was given a horrifyingly humiliating interrogation of her sex life shortly after being released from three months of "disappearance" for tweeting about the Arab Spring and the Jasmine protests. more ›

Have you ever wondered what 213 meters of horse sausage looks like? Well here you have it. Using the casings of 30 horses(!!!) this Xinjiang butcher made 1,256kg of Kazakh sausage out of eight horses' thighs. Five brothers worked together on the project, and were awarded The Longest Horse Intestine in the World certificate! more ›

We posted shots of new army recruits training out in Xinjiang earlier and now we've got our hands on some more Xinjiang military photos -- this time of soldiers border patrolling 5492 meters above sea and at -37 degrees. more ›

One-month old recruits stationed in the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang receive training at temperatures as low as minus 30℃. more ›

A frightening stampede at an elementary school which injured 41 students turns out to be caused by....a lost shoe? Madina, an 8 year old girl at No. 5 Elementary School located in Aksu, Xinjiang, was descending down a stairwell with her classmates when her shoe fell off. She bent down to look for the lost article but as the children were rushing down to the playground, students started trampling over her. more ›

Tea house and evening market, Kashgar in Xinjiang, from Josh at Far West China. more ›

City Weekend has a great interview up with the captain of Xinjiang University's baseball team, Parhat Ablat. The team is currently trying to raise enough money to be able to participate in the China National College Baseball Tournament, which takes place next week in Shanghai. If you're interested in helping them out, visit their website for donation options. more ›

It's been one year now since Xinjiang suddenly erupted in riots, and the government is taking no chances. Josh of Far West China looks at all that's happening in his neck of the woods: apparently, they've been busy installing roughly 40,000 hi-def surveillance cameras, putting cameras into taxis and making sure foreign reporters don't go anywhere alone. more ›

The rippling consequences of last July's unrest in Xinjiang continues. Along with rampant arrests, and quite a few executions of those held responsible, it's an understatement to say that this year was hard on Xinjiang. Exasperated by last summer's syringe attacks, the crackdown on Uighurs "terrorists" goes on. more ›

Here are the exact words from an article in the Global Times, entitled "1,000 yuan to cut the crap", and we quote: "A property management company is offering a 1,000 yuan ($146) to anyone in an apartment complex on Wuyi Road, Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region who can confirm the identity of an upper floor idiot who has been tossing newspaper-wrapped feces from above once or twice a week for the last 10 years." Read more here. more ›

New Xinjiang blog Autonomous Region tells us of fast food chain KFC's latest localisation tactics in China's westernmost province: more ›

After 312 days of life under the murky veil of heavily restricted (and mostly non-existent) Internet, Xinjiang is plugged back into the world wide web. The local government announced today that Internet connection was restored to “meet the needs of maintaining stability, boosting social and economic development and the calls from all ethnic groups." more ›

"We must strike hard at all the separatist and destructive activities brought on by the three forces of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism." more ›

Josh Summers of FarWestChina follows up on our story of Alimjan Yimit, the imprisoned Uyghur Christian pastor of an underground church, and tells us a little about the Uyghur people and Christianity in Xinjiang:

Many people don’t realize that there are government-approved Christian churches in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi. I have personally been inside and sat in on a couple services. According to Chinese law, the government is supposed to supply registered religious organizations with a plot of land and a building in which to meet. Key word: registered. more ›

Christian Post via Compass Direct News, reports that Alimjan Yimit, an ethnic Uyghur pastor of a house church who was sentenced last year to 15 years prison for "leaking state secrets", has been allowed to see his family for the first time in over two years:

Authorities in Xinjiang Province recently moved Uyghur Christian Alimjan Yimit from a prison in Kashgar to a prison in the provincial capital Urumqi and allowed the first visit from family members since his arrest in January 2008, sources told Compass. more ›

Sublime piece of work by Abram Hodgens made with 26,000 images taken over two months travelling across Tibet, Xinjiang, Yunnan and Sichuan. This video will make you want to drop everything, pack your bags and go on a roadtrip: more ›

The long-time governor of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, has been removed from his post and replaced by Zhang Chunxian, the 57-year-old party chief of Hunan province. more ›

Think those sandstorms we saw earlier this year were anything? Well now the biggest sandstorm in 17 years has enveloped Gansu province as well as some parts of the Xinjiang province. In several parts of Gansu, like Minqin County, visibility is now close to zero metres. At least three people are dead and one is missing. more ›

• In an Obvious News of the Week alert: the one child policy here in China is breeding a generation of really, really bratty people. [China Daily]
• Have you realized how much we love Peter Hessler yet? No? Then how about we feature yet another interview with the man about his new book "Country Driving." [Worldhum]
• Even with Google China hiring again, looks like things aren't quite peachy yet between the internet giant and this country - a Nexus One smartphone event that would've gone through Beijing has been scrapped. It'll still continue in Hong Kong and Taiwan. [Reuters]