When the time comes, what is it that the U.S. and Iran can talk about? The answer, according to Ambassador Pickering is simple: almost everything.

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Chinese state media says more than 100 people have been killed and another 800 people injured in rioting in the far western Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

The violence broke out after a protest on Sunday by ethnic Uighurs – Muslims who accuse the Beijing government of a systematic campaign to dilute and destroy their culture.

Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan reports on the protests, which the government blames on overseas agitators.

More from the New York Times:

The Chinese government locked down this regional capital of 2.3 million people and other cities across its western desert region on Monday and early Tuesday, imposing curfews, cutting off cellphone and Internet services and sending armed police officers into neighborhoods after clashes erupted here on Sunday evening between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese. The fighting left at least 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured, according to the state news agency.

It was the deadliest episode of ethnic violence in China in decades. The bloodshed here, along with the Tibetan uprising last year, shows the extent of racial hostility that still pervades much of western China, fueled partly by government attempts to restrict religious and political activity by minority groups.

The rioting, which began as a peaceful protest calling for a full government inquiry into an earlier brawl between Uighurs and Han Chinese at a factory in southern China, took place in the heart of Xinjiang, an oil-rich desert region where Uighurs are the largest ethnic group but are ruled by the Han, the dominant ethnic group in the country.

Protests spread Monday to the heavily guarded oasis town of Kashgar, on China’s remote western border, as 200 to 300 people chanting “God is great” and “Release the people” confronted riot police officers about 5:30 p.m. in front of the city’s yellow-walled Id Kah Mosque, the largest mosque in China. They quickly dispersed when officers began arresting people, one resident said.

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Mauritania goes to the polls next Saturday to elect a new president following last year’s military coup.

Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, is being lit up with performances from musicians, poets and artists as election candidates try to woo voters amid the return to democracy.

Al Jazeera’s Owen Fay reports.

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Iran’s bazaaris, who played a major role in the 1978 regime change, do not necessarily have a favored position in today’s Iran, says Ambassador Pickering. Instead, the two pillars holding up the Iranian regime are the mullah-based leadership and the “gun carriers”–military, security, intelligence, and police.

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