Reporters on the Job

from the March 17, 2008 edition

• Dodging Police: After being stopped by police on Saturday night en route to the town he had hoped to visit to cover continuing Tibetan protests against the Chinese government, Peter Ford turned around and went somewhere else. He had flown from Beijing to a province northeast of Tibet.

To get today's story about Tibetans in Tongren, China, it took 13 hours of driving, three hours sleep, and a good deal of dodging more policemen bent on stopping him, Peter says.

"But it also gave me an eyeful of the most spectacular mountain scenery I have visited in a long time, and I came across a remarkable device I had never seen before. In many gardens I saw what appeared to be satellite dishes: in fact they were primitive solar water heaters – concave reflective bowls with a stand in the middle on which you can sit a kettle. At a monastery, I watched a Buddhist monk boil a kettle in the bright sunshine, even though the air was chilly."

– David Clark Scott

World editor

• Monday, March 17: Moscow – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates begin two-day visit.Geneva – African Union and United Nations officials meet for two days of talks on moving the Darfur peace process forward.

• Thursday, March 20: Baghdad – Fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. More than 40 nations participated, but 98 percent were US and British forces.

• Friday, March 21 (Good Friday): Nicosia, Cyprus – Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat hold talks aimed at reviving UN-backed efforts to reunify the island.

– Associated Press

Easter prep: In Lehde, Germany, a woman decorates eggs. She's a member of a Slavic minority known as Sorbs. There are about 60,000 Sorbs in Germany. Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters More cultural snapshots

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