His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Dharamsala on 8 February 2010 /Photo:Tenzin Choejor, Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Dharamshala: The chief minister of India's Bihar state, Mr Nitish Kumar, has met His Holiness the Dalai Lama this morning at his residence in Dharamsala.

The Kashag, headed by Kalon Tripa Prof Samdhong Rinpoche, hosted a dinner reception in honour of the visiting chief minister yesterday, Secretary Migyur Dorjee told TibetNet.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is expected to formally invite His Holiness the Dalai Lama to visit Patna and inaugurate the majestic Buddha Memorial Park which is expected to be ready by April-May this year, The Times of India reported.

The huge park with meditation hall is being built close to Patna Junction at a cost of Rs. 125 crore. It is coming up to mark the 2550th year of Mahaparinirvana of Lord Buddha. Nitish is expected to seek support of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for keeping the urn containing holy relics of Lord Buddha in the park so that it could be put on display. The relics are preserved at Patna Museum for about 60 years after its discovery during excavations in Vaishali (Yangpachen).

It is expected that a date for inauguration of the park by His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be finalised after discussion between the two.

source tibet.net

In this file photo, His Holiness the Dalai Lama (C) receives the German media prize from Mr Karlheinz Koegel,the chief of Media Control (L), as Mr. Roland Koch, the prime minister of the German state of Hesse (R) applauds the honour, at a ceremony in Baden-Baden, in Germany on 10 February 2009

Dharamshala: The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center announced Friday (5 February) that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will accept the International Freedom Conductor Award (IFCA) in Cincinnati, Ohio.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his unstinting advocacy of freedom for his native Tibet, will be honoured at a lunch at the Duke Energy Center on 20 October, said Freedom Center CEO & President, Donald W. Murphy.

"We are tremendously honoured and gratified that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, will accept our Freedom Conductor Award, which goes to individuals and organisations that have been conspicuous and effective champions of freedom. The Dalai Lama's tireless efforts on behalf of Tibet -- and his life-long advocacy of freedom and peace for all people -- are in the finest traditions of those abolitionists who fought for the eradication of slavery in the 18th and 19th Centuries," Murphy said.

There is a saying that with great power comes great responsibility. However, as far as China is concerned, their recent behaviors have exhibited only their lack of maturity and excessive hubris of a wannabe superpower. As China seeks to exploit the maximum leverage out of its newfound economic and political clout, it is also candidly clear that the country is besotted with a motley assortment of deeply embedded insecurities.

The author of China's Trapped Transition, Minxin Pei, cited as his favorite sign of this insecurity the huge market for conspiracy theories in China, for he believed that "if you are really secure, you don't dabble in conspiracy theories". For instance, China has aggressively peddled the theory that the recent mass upheavals in Tibet and Xinjiang were actually products of foreign machinations. "I am not talking about the man on the street. I'm talking about quite well-educated people, very serious people, who believe in this kind of conspiracy theories," said Minxin Pei. 

A woman waits for customers as she sells food over debris in downtown Port-au-Prince on 1 February 2010. Aid groups and troops from around the world have struggled to distribute food, water and medical care to an estimated three million Haitians injured or left homeless in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that wrecked much of Haiti's capital on 12 January, killing as many as 200,000 people/REUTERS

Dharamshala: His Holiness the Dalai Lama has made a donation of Swiss Francs 100,000 to facilitate relief efforts in Haiti through the International Red Cross Committee in Geneva.

Welcoming His Holiness the Dalai Lama's help and commitment to the humanitarian efforts in Haiti, Bekele Geleta, the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, has “expressed heartfelt gratitude for the generous contribution in support of their operation in Haiti”.

“Your commitment to help our operation in Haiti is much appreciated and your gesture of solidarity has been communicated to the Haitian Red Cross and to our teams based in the field, where activities are being coordinated and implemented to reach the victims of this terrible disaster,” Geleta said in a faxed letter to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

[Tibet Society, London; 3 February] The ninth round of talks is over. The Dalai Lama’s envoys have returned to Dharamsala, where Special Envoy Lodi Gyari issued a reasonable and constructive statement. In contrast, in Beijing, Zhu Weiqun, executive deputy head of the Communist Party's United Front Work Department, the body that “engages” with the envoys, held a news conference where he adopted a tone of uncompromising rhetoric, saying relations with the Dalai Lama was China's internal affair so "outsiders have no right to voice any opinions." And repeating the long held line that, “the central government wanted the Dalai Lama to abandon his stand to split the country, cease separatist activities, openly admit that Tibet was an inalienable part of China and Taiwan was an inalienable part of China and the government of the People's Republic of China was the only legal government representing China.”
 
Mr Zhu also used the opportunity to directly warn President Obama against meeting the Dalai Lama, suggesting that such a meeting would “damage trust and co-operation between our two countries” and asking, “how would that help the United States surmount the current economic crisis?”

File photo of His Holiness the Dalai Lama receiving the US Congressional Gold Medal from President Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Sen. Robert Byrd, during a ceremony 17 October 2007 in the Capitol (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)

Dharamshala: US President Barack Obama will go ahead with his plans to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he visits Washington next time, the White House Deputy Press Secretary said Tuesday.

"The President told China's leaders during his trip last year that he would meet with the Dalai Lama, and he intends to do so. The Dalai Lama is an internationally respected religious and cultural leader, and the President will meet him in that capacity," Deputy Secretary Bill Burton said.

He said the US government has human rights concerns about the treatment of Tibetans. We urge the government of China to protect the unique cultural and religious traditions of Tibet," Burton said.

The Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, P J Crowley, said that China has made its views clear to the U.S. on His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Dharamshala: The two envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama have returned to India after meeting with the representatives of the Chinese government in China for the ninth round of dialogue on Tibet, Secretary to His Holiness the Dalai Lama said Monday.

The envoys will brief Kalon Tripa Samdhong Rinpoche on their arrival in Dharamsala on Monday. They will brief His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Tuesday morning, following which they are expected to meet the press on the same day.

Special Envoy Lodi G. Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen left for China on 25 January for discussions with the representatives of the Chinese leadership. The Envoys visited China after a gap of 15 months in the process that began in 2002. Senior assistants Tenzin P. Atisha, Bhuchung K. Tsering, both members of Tibetan Task Force on Negotiations, and Jigmey Passang from the Secretariat of the Tibetan Task Force, accompanied the two envoys.

During the eighth round of talks in November 2009, the envoys presented the "Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People" to the Chinese leadership.

The memorandum puts forth Tibetan people's aspiration for genuine autonomy, and how the specific needs of the Tibetan nationality for autonomy and self-government can be met through application of the principles on autonomy of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China.
 

source tibet.net

Burmese Democracy Activists Visit Exile Tibetan Parliament

source tibet.net

The Dalai Lama’s envoys traveled to China for talks this week just days after the conclusion of a high-level meeting attended by President Hu Jintao, setting out Tibet policy for the coming years.

The Fifth Tibet Work Forum, held on January 18-20, is the most recent in a series of rare strategy meetings on Tibet that have now been held just five times since the Chinese took over Tibet in 1949-50. The meeting last week was attended by more than 300 of China’s most senior Party, government and military leaders. Notably, the Fifth Tibet Work Forum concluded days before envoys of the Dalai Lama, led by Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, arrived in China for the ninth round of Sino-Tibetan dialogue, some 15 months since the previous round. Speculation on the timing of the ninth round of dialogue so soon after the Fifth Tibet Work Forum has raised expectation that this could be a pivotal moment for Tibet.

The Fifth Tibet Work Forum was the first since the protests and crackdown beginning in March, 2008; the fourth was held in June, 2001. It was not announced in the official media until two days after the meeting was over, and the only prior indication that it was about to take place was a series of brief online articles in the state media in English referring to previous Tibet Work Forums. Since then, a carefully-chosen selection of statements from the meeting has been published in the official press, including speeches by Party Secretary and President Hu Jintao, and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. This ICT report analyzes the approach to Tibet revealed by published statements from the Fifth Tibet Work Forum, and that could provide context for the current round of Sino-Tibetan talks.