American, Australian Detained in Tibet

Chinese authorities have detained an American and an Australian who were conducting interviews in a remote area of the Tibetan plateau that has been selected for World Bank aid, officials and experts on Tibet said. Chinese authorities said Dagamizu Meston, a leading Tibetan linguist from the U.S., and Gabriel Lafitte, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, were detained in Qinghai province, said Richard Scurfield, the World Bank’s acting chief of mission. He said the bank did not arrange or have advance knowledge of the trip and did not have details about the detentions. The area, Dulan, is at the center of a controversial plan to move 58,000 poor Chinese farmers from arid, over-farmed land elsewhere in Qinghai. The World Bank approved a $40-million loan to help fund the project. The plan has faced opposition from the U.S., the Dalai Lama, Tibetan exile groups, and activists, who say the project would reignite old ethnic hostilities and abet alleged plans by China to anchor restive Tibetan regions with Chinese settlers.