Woman sets herself on fire in Tibetan protest

A Tibetan taxi driver set herself on fire and died in the latest protests against Chinese rule over her homeland, overseas rights groups confirmed yesterday.

Chagmo Kyi, a mother of two children, burnt herself to death on Saturday afternoon in a square in Tongren county in the western Chinese province of Qinghai. It was the eighth self-immolation in the Tongren area this month, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said.

It added that 75 people had self-immolated in ethnically Tibetan areas since February 2009, and most of them had died.

Tibet support groups say an increase in protests in the past two weeks coincided with the Com-munist Party Congress in Beijing.

AP