As the Prime Minister indicated yesterday, he has made it clear that he has no need to meet with the Dalai Lama on the occasion of this visit. The Prime Minister has advised other ministers of the decision that he has made, and, as the Prime Minister indicated yesterday, his understanding is that no other Ministers currently plan to meet the Dalai Lama.
19/Nov/2009 Copyright © The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. All rights reserved
Prime Minister John Key says he won't be meeting the Dalai Lama on his trip to New Zealand next month, despite saying during last year's election campaign that he would.
Mr Key said yesterday that he had received an invitation to meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader next month but would not and nor would other Government ministers, though the National Party might.
The Herald reported on Mr Key's campaign comments last year when an undecided voter had criticised the then Prime Minister Helen Clark for not meeting the Dalai Lama. Mr Key said he had already met him and when asked if he would meet him as Prime Minister said "I would".
19/Nov/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
On a carefully orchestrated tour, his hosts' economic power has limited US options, reports Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Wearing a similar suit and tie to his host, President Hu Jintao, he has sometimes sounded practically confucian himself. "Our relationship going forward will not be without disagreement or difficulty," he intoned yesterday. "But, because of our co-operation, both the United States and China are more prosperous and secure."
He had to fly halfway round the world to say that? So the closest to a breakthrough moment was when the President spoke of the values that inspire his nation. "I spoke to President Hu about America's bedrock beliefs that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights," he told reporters at the no-questions press conference in Beijing.
18/Nov/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
President Obama's talks in China offer a precious opportunity to strengthen and recalibrate the world's most important bilateral relationship. Few dramatic public breakthroughs are likely as a result of his visit; his public urgings at his town hall-style meeting with students in Shanghai on human rights are unlikely to be any more successful than similar appeals by his predecessors in improving Beijing's dismal record in this field. But in his private session with President Hu Jintao, the stakes could hardly be higher.
17/Nov/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Chinese students draw President into subtle attack on internet restrictions and the 'Great Firewall of China'
Barack Obama used his first day in China to offer a carefully worded critique of Beijing's record on freedom of speech, telling an audience of students that it was good for leaders to be forced "to hear opinions that [they] don't want to hear".
But by the end of the day that pointed message had been wrapped in a deferential approach apparently designed to avoid any serious clash with America's largest foreign creditor.
17/Nov/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Two people have been put to death for their roles in protests in Tibet last year, the first known executions for the violence.
... Other Tibetan rights groups have said the executions were carried out last Tuesday. Tibetans attacked Chinese migrants and shops in Lhasa in anti-government riots in March 2008 and torched parts of the commercial district. Chinese officials say 22 people died, but Tibetans say many times that number were killed.
28/Oct/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Two Tibetans put to death for arson attacks in Lhasa � the first reported judicial killings in the region for six years
The Chinese government has confirmed it executed two Tibetans for deadly arson attacks during last year's unrest in Lhasa - the first reported judicial killings in the region for six years.
... There has been no confirmation of two other executions reported last Thursday by the campaign group Free Tibet.
27/Oct/2009 Copyright © Guardian News and Media Limited. All rights reserved
Two months after sending the Prime Minister an invitation to meet the Dalai Lama, organisers of the Buddhist leader's New Zealand visit say they have not received a response.
The 73-year-old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is scheduled to be in Auckland on December 6, where he will speak at the Vector Arena.
Mr Key said before last year's election that he would meet the Dalai Lama as Prime Minister.
Shoulde John Key meet with the Dalai Lama? Here is the latest selection of Your Views ...
9/Oct/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
Rudd takes a cue from Obama.
Barack Obama's decision not to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington this week did more than just send a message of appeasement to Beijing. It also set a precedent for global leaders that shunning the Tibetan spiritual leader is now okay, even in nations that support the basic human rights and democratic freedoms for which the Dalai Lama stands.
Australia certainly got the message: Last week the office of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced he would not meet the Dalai Lama during a December visit. "Given the frequency of the Dalai Lama's visits the government believes the current arrangements are appropriate," a statement from a spokesman said, pointing out that the Dalai Lama had visited three times in three years.
8/Oct/2009 Copyright © Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved
Pro-independence Tibetan Youth Congress on Wednesday marked its 40th founding anniversary by reaffirming its goal of restoring Tibet’s lost independence.
Members of Tibetan Youth Congress and hundreds of supporters gathered at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) compound to observe an elaborate ceremonial event that began with Tibetan national anthem and a minute-long silence observed in memory of Tibetan martyrs.
“We are gathered here today to mark the 40th founding anniversary of the Tibetan Youth Congress since it was first formed on 7 October, 1970, with the sole objective of restoring Tibet’s lost independence from the repressive Chinese communist rule,�? said Mr Tsewang Rigzin, President of the TYC, in his opening statement.
8/Oct/2009 Copyright © Phayul.com. All rights reserved
KATHMANDU — As Beijing marked the 60th anniversary of Communist rule last week, police in Nepal quietly rounded up dozens of Tibetan exiles they said were suspected of planning to hold anti-China protests here.
The pre-emptive arrests in early morning raids across the capital Kathmandu were the latest sign of an increasingly hardline approach by Nepalese authorities to the country's Tibetan population.
Nepal is home to around 20,000 exiled Tibetans, who began arriving in large numbers in 1959 after their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled Tibet following a failed uprising against the Chinese.
7/Oct/2009 Copyright © Phayul.com. All rights reserved
Two months after sending the Prime Minister an invitation to meet the Dalai Lama, organisers of the Buddhist leader's New Zealand visit say they have not received a response.
The 73-year-old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is scheduled to be in Auckland on December 6, where he will speak at the Vector Arena.
Mr Key said before last year's election that he would meet the Dalai Lama as Prime Minister.
But his spokesman told the Herald that "a decision is yet to be made on this invitation".
7/Oct/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
The Dalai Lama, the 73-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, is scheduled to speak at the Vector Area in Auckland on December 6, although it is not yet known if the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key will accept the invitation to watch him speak.
Thuten Kesang, chairman of the Dalai Lama Visit Trust, said he will be keeping a close eye on the visit of exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer next week, to see what sort of reception and reaction she receives in Auckland.
Kadeer is waiting to be issued a New Zealand visa for her visit, and an application in August for an Australian visa was strongly opposed by the Chinese Government. The Australian Government did not bow to pressure and issued the Australian visa to Kadeer for her to speak at several functions in the country.
7/Oct/2009 Copyright © Phayul.com. All rights reserved
Terming as "inaccurate" reports that Barack Obama has postponed his talks with the Dalai Lama, the White House has said the US President holds the Tibetan leader in great esteem and insisted that a meeting was never on the cards during the Nobel laureate's current trip here.
It also said that a strong Sino-US relationship will help the cause of the Tibetan people.
... It has been a tradition since 1991 that the Tibetan spiritual leader meets the US President, whenever he visits Washington. This is for the first time since then that the US President is not meeting the Dalai during his Washington trip.
7/Oct/2009 Copyright © Phayul.com. All rights reserved
The first open public event of the Dalai Lamaπs visit to Washington, DC, next week is a major award ceremony on Wednesday, October 7. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and actor and activist Richard Gere are among those who will join the Dalai Lama onstage.
The Light of Truth Award is given to individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions to the public understanding of Tibet and the plight of the Tibetan people. Award recipients are selected by the Board of Directors of the International Campaign for Tibet.
2/Oct/2009 Copyright © International Campaign for Tibet. All rights reserved
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled religious leader, on Thursday shrugged off an apparent snub by President Barack Obama, saying he was assured Obama would raise Tibetan issues when he visits China next month.
"He already indicated that he's going to speak with the Chinese and it seems he (will be) seriously engaging with the Chinese about (the) Tibet issue," the Dalai Lama told CNN's "Situation Room" in an interview in Washington.
8/Oct/2009 Copyright © The New York Times Company. All rights reserved
WASHINGTON -- Two Octobers ago, the Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal, one of America's highest civilian honors, in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked of a "special relationship between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the United States." Said Sen. Mitch McConnell: "We have reached out in solidarity to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people, and the Chinese government needs to know that we will continue to do so." President George W. Bush urged Chinese leaders "to welcome the Dalai Lama to China. They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation."
This October, on a scheduled visit to the United States, the Dalai Lama will not be welcomed at the White House. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was recently dispatched to Dharamsala -- the Dalai Lama's place of exile in northern India -- to gently deliver the message. The Tibetans took the news, as usual, nonviolently. "A lot of nations are adopting a policy of appeasement (toward China)," observed Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of Tibet's government-in-exile. "I understand why Obama is not meeting with the Dalai Lama before his Chinese trip. It is common sense. Obama should not irritate the Chinese leadership."
29/Sept/2009 Copyright © Phayul.com. All rights reserved
BEIJING — A senior adviser to President Obama met the Dalai Lama on Monday in Dharamsala, in northern India, and discussed the exiled spiritual leader’s views on how to preserve Tibetan identity, a White House spokesman said.
The adviser, Valerie Jarrett, “conveyed the president’s respect�? and heard the Dalai Lama’s “commitment to dialogue with the Chinese government, and that he does not seek independence but rather sees Tibet’s future as a part of China,�? Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in an e-mail message.
“We think his views deserve our attention, and that of the Chinese government,�? he said.
15/Sept/2009 Copyright © The New York Times Company. All rights reserved
The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has held a prayer ceremony in southern Taiwan in memory of the victims of last month's typhoon.
It was the Dalai Lama's first major public appearance since he arrived on the island on Sunday.
He has described his trip as non-political, but China has condemned it.
It has reportedly postponed several delegations to Taiwan, at a time when relations between Beijing and Taipei have otherwise been improving.
1/Sept/2009 Copyright © BBC. All rights reserved
LAUSANNE - The Dalai Lama says about 4000 people imprisoned during anti-Chinese riots in Tibet last year remain in custody - and an international investigation is needed.
The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader was encouraged by the growing support Chinese people and intellectuals were showing for the Tibetan cause. But he said the situation remained tense, despite having calmed since last year's unrest and crackdown by the Chinese Government.
Anti-Chinese riots erupted in Lhasa in March last year and spread across western China.
In response, Beijing poured troops into Tibetan areas, kept foreign media and tourists out and purged Buddhist monasteries at the centre of anti-Government sentiment.
6/Aug/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
The massacre in Urumqi demonstrates how little has changed
Beijing has used the same techniques in Tibet, where authorities have encouraged the migration of tens of thousands of Han Chinese, curbed Tibetan Buddhist culture and accused the Dalai Lama, without proof, of orchestrating violent rebellion from abroad. Like the Tibetan plateau, Xinjiang has strategic importance for Beijing. The province is China's largest natural gas producing region and is rich in minerals.
7/Jul/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, recently said: "The Dalai Lama equals non-violence, and without him there would be violence."
In Beijing, Chinese writer Wang Lixiong agreed: "If ... the Dalai Lama does not return to Tibet before he dies, the moment that he dies will see general riots across the Tibetan areas of China." And he is going to die, probably fairly soon.
2/Jul/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
It was a telling phrase, whispered furtively by a frightened man looking over his shoulder. He was a Muslim Uighur in the restive western Chinese province of Xinjiang, where scores of people were killed in violence at the weekend directed at Han Chinese settlers. How would he describe the relationship between the Uighurs and the Chinese?
After 500 years of autocracy, Tibetan leader calls for democracy
In a speech that underscored the pressures he has had to bear during his life serving as both a spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama has said there is no need for his successor to perform the two roles.
In a video clip shown to hundreds of monks, nuns and lay people gathered in the mountain town of Dharamsala, the 73-year-old said it was essential that the Tibetan community in exile embraced democracy if it were to keep step with the wider world.
"The Dalai Lamas held temporal and spiritual leadership over the last 400 to 500 years. It may have been quite useful. But that period is over," said the Nobel prize winner. "Today, it is clear to the whole world that democracy is the best system despite its minor negativities. That is why it is important that Tibetans also move with the larger world community."
22/Jun/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
... The fact of the present Dalai Lama's age and imperfect health hangs like Damacles' sword, and the Tibetan leader clearly feels the issue of succession requires urgent resolution if the exiled Tibetan communities are not going to fragment in his absence.
Nonetheless, the traditional Tibetan solutions to this puzzle are profoundly inadequate, and the Dalai Lama knows it. Tibetans can no longer afford 20 year inter-renums between the death of a sitting Dalai Lama and the majority of his reincarnations.
At the same time, many aristocrats were seen as turncoats working for the Chinese during the Tibetan Uprising. The established monastic leaders, moreover, would now almost certainly cause sectarian schisms amongst Tibet's exiles. For the Dalai Lama, then, the solution lies in the people.
22/Jun/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been made an honorary citizen of the French capital, Paris.
Mayor Bertrand Delanoe made the award in what French President Nicolas Sarkozy described as a municipal matter, not an act of state.
8/Jun/2009 Copyright © BBC. All rights reserved
Rising temperatures in Tibet are threatening droughts and floods, which could endanger millions of people, China's top weather official warned.
Climate change "has accelerated glacial shrinkage" which has already led to swollen lakes, said Zheng Guoguang.
He said that if the warming continued, many of those living in western China would face "floods in the short-term and drought in the long-run".
6/May/2009 Copyright © BBC. All rights reserved
China says video footage that purportedly shows Chinese security personnel violently beating Tibetans last year is "a lie".
The video apparently shows protesters being beaten with sticks, and kicked and choked by China's security forces.
The Tibetan government-in-exile says the footage shows China's "brutality".
25/Mar/2009 Copyright © BBC. All rights reserved
Chinese police have detained almost 100 monks after hundreds of people rioted and attacked a police station in an ethnic Tibetan part of the western province of Qinghai, state media said yesterday.
A trickle of isolated protests in recent weeks, including a monk who set himself on fire at the Kirti monastery in western Sichuan and a bomb thrown at a government office, which caused no casualties, suggest lingering discontent.
23/Mar/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
The Dalai Lama has claimed life in Tibet has become "hell on earth" under Chinese rule, and warned that traditional Tibetan culture has been pushed to the edge of extinction. In one of his most striking and powerful speeches, the Tibetan Buddhist leader marked the 50th anniversary of the 1959 uprising that led to his flight to India by saying China had created "untold suffering and destruction" and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans.
11/Mar/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Police and troops are deployed to contain dissident monks on anniversary
China has dramatically stepped up security in Tibet and imposed "de facto martial law" ahead of today's anniversary of a failed uprising 50 years ago that forced the Dalai Lama to flee the country and establish the exiled freedom movement in India. China's President has also called for a "Great Wall of stability" in Tibet.
Police patrols have increased near Buddhist monasteries known to contain dissident monks and the number of checkpoints has increased. Foreign journalists are banned from the region.
10/Mar/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A monk carrying a Tibetan national flag and shouting slogans set himself on fire in south-central China on Friday and then was shot at by police, a human rights group reported.
Police fired three shots at the monk, but it was not known if any hit him or whether he survived, said Matt Whitticase, spokesman for the London-based Free Tibet organization. Whitticase said he based his report on eyewitness accounts.
9/Mar/2009 Copyright © Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.. All rights reserved
BEIJING — British rock band Oasis' debut concerts in China have been cancelled after the country's authorities deemed them to be "unsuitable".
The shows, scheduled for Beijing's Capital Arena on April 3 and the Shanghai Grand Stage on April 5, would have been the first in mainland China for the group, currently on a world tour promoting its latest release, Dig Out Your Soul.
3/Mar/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
(BEIJING) — Scores of Buddhist monks in southwestern China are likely under police lock-down after marching in protest over a decades-old ban on prayers during the Tibetan New Year, Tibetan rights advocates said.
The report of Sunday's march — the latest incident in an apparent spike in acts of defiance against Chinese rule — comes amid tensions over harsh security measures authorities set up ahead of the sensitive two-week holiday and the upcoming anniversary of last year's deadly Tibetan riots.
2/March/2009 Copyright © Time Inc. All rights reserved
A Tibetan monk has been shot after setting fire to himself during a protest at Beijing's rule, reports say.
The incident happened in the Tibetan-populated town of Aba in southwest China's Sichuan province during a gathering of more than 1,000 monks.
The monk, named Tapey, is said to have shouted slogans and waved a Tibetan flag, then used petrol to start a fire.
Campaign groups said witnesses then saw Chinese police shoot the man.
28/Feb/2009 Copyright © BBC. All rights reserved
BEIJING, Feb. 27 -- A young Tibetan monk was shot by Chinese police after he set himself on fire Friday, the third day of the Tibetan New Year, at a market in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture, Tibetan activist groups said, citing eyewitnesses.
Many Tibetans this year are avoiding celebrating the New Year or are instead using the 15-day holiday to commemorate those killed in deadly riots in Lhasa last March. Chinese authorities, determined to avoid a recurrence of the violence, have sharply increased security patrols, detentions and so-called reeducation campaigns. They are especially nervous about March 10, the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, which Chinese troops forcibly suppressed shortly before the Dalai Lama fled into exile and Beijing imposed its own government in Tibet.
28/Feb/2009 Copyright © The Washington Post Company. All rights reserved
WASHINGTON - The United States has scolded China for a litany of human rights abuses last year, even though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested during her recent Beijing visit that the issue would take a back seat to broader concerns like the global financial crisis.
In a report on the state of human rights around the world, the State Department singled out China for numerous violations while noting a general deterioration in conditions in other countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and eastern Europe.
27/Feb/2009 Copyright © APN Holdings NZ Limited. All rights reserved
I first met Dorje in front of the gates of the Longwu Monastery in Tongren, a town in China's far-western Qinghai province. Like the majority there, he was an ethnic Tibetan, a nomadic yak breeder in town on a pilgrimage. While friendly toward foreigners, Dorje nodded at the video cameras mounted above the road and said we'd better speak somewhere private. It's a grim commentary on the iron grip China maintains on Tibetan areas of the country that even a yak herdsman knows to be wary of video surveillance. In a sheltered corner of the monastery's walls, Dorje enumerated the wrongs visited on ordinary Tibetans by the Chinese authorities: beatings, arbitrary arrests and lengthy jail sentences, extortion, forced attendance at public vilifications of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The list went on, culminating in attempts to make Tibetans celebrate the Lunar New Year, something Dorje and others told me they had refused to do out of respect for Tibetans killed in Lhasa last March when anti-Chinese protests turned violent.
26/Feb/2009 Copyright © Time Inc. All rights reserved
(BEIJING) — Chinese state media on Thursday blasted a U.S. State Department report criticizing its human rights record, calling the allegations groundless and accusing Washington of interfering in its internal affairs.
The report issued in Washington on Wednesday accuses China of stepping up cultural and religious repression of minorities in Tibet and elsewhere, and increasing the detention and harassment of dissidents.
26/Feb/2009 Copyright © Time Inc. All rights reserved
(XIAHE, China) — Only a handful of pilgrims gathered here last weekend at the historic Labrang monastery, normally bustling before the Tibetan New Year.
"There was a war in Lhasa this year. Lots of Tibetans were killed," one resident murmured, referring to protests last March against Chinese rule that broke out in the Tibetan capital and spread to other cities in western China, including Xiahe. The unrest was the largest and most sustained in decades.
24/Feb/2009 Copyright © Time Inc. All rights reserved
The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said the debate with China over human rights, Taiwan and Tibet could not interfere with attempts to reach consensus on other issues ...
She said it might be better to agree to disagree on long-standing positions and focus instead on US-Chinese engagement on climate change, the financial crisis and security threats.
21/Feb/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Charles Darwin has been accused of many things – but never before of being a closet Tibetan Buddhist ...
Professor Paul Ekman said that his studies of Darwin's texts had revealed that the great Victorian scientist had identical views to those expressed by the Dalai Lama, a personal friend of Professor Ekman.
16/Feb/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Taking place on the 4th-11th day of the first Tibetan Lunar month, Monlam, the Great Prayer Festival, is one of the most important festivals in Tibetan Buddhism. Pictures of this year's festival display the spectacular processions and colourful outfits of Tibet's Buddhist monks.
5/Feb/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
Five demonstrators were arrested during scuffles with police outside the Chinese embassy in London yesterday as they called for freedom for Tibet. It was one of several protests planned during the visit of China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who arrived in London on Saturday as part of a European tour aimed at improving trade between Europe and China and finding a way out of the global financial crisis.
2/Feb/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved
A protester threw a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and called him a dictator as he delivered a speech on the global economy in England today.
2/Feb/2009 Copyright © independent.co.uk. All rights reserved