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Chinese J-10 Fighter Unit Makes Maiden Flight with Live Ammunition in Tibet 15:38 GMT, February 2, 2012 On January 31, 2012, at a military airport of the Air Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Tibet, an aviation regiment stationed in Tibet equipped with J-10 fighters launched the year 2012’s first training of two-fighter confrontation with live ammunition. At 10:10, with the ear-piercing roaring sound, two J-10 fighters soared to the sky like arrows from the bow. At 12:30, two fighters that had just finished the training landed on the tarmac. Peng Lizhong, head of the second fighter...

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Tibetan government-in-exile has colluded with Western governments to distort a recent string of police shootings in Tibetan areas of China in a bid to discredit the government, an official Chinese newspaper said Monday. Protests by ethnic Tibetans, who accuse Chinese authorities of stifling their traditions and religious freedoms, have gathered pace in the mountainous frontiers of southwestern Sichuan province that border on Tibet proper since last Monday.

Reports: Chinese Police Open Fire on Tibetan Protesters Posted Monday, January 23rd, 2012 at 3:30 pm Witnesses and Tibetan advocacy groups say police in southwestern China opened fire on several thousand Tibetan demonstrators Monday, killing at least one person and wounding many others. An exiled monk who spoke by phone Monday with witnesses told VOA the confrontation took place in western Sichuan province . He said the wounded are being sheltered in a nearby monastery, and that the confrontation was ongoing at the point he lost contact with the witnesses. The rights group Free Tibet, which campaigns for Tibetan autonomy,...

Recently, there has been an uprising of protests by Tibetan monks over China’s occupation of Tibet and the exile of the Dalai Lama. The protests are not done with signs and chanting but with self-immolation or the act of burning oneself alive. Richard Gere has praised the actions of the Buddhists monks calling them “a pure act.” Gere, a long-time Buddhist, says, “It all really comes down to motivation. I mean none of these self-immolators have harmed anybody else. It is totally a self-sacrifice for their people, for others. So on that level it’s a pure act. But I think...

SURRENDER COMPLETELY AND RECEIVE MY LOVE FOR YOU ! My surrender to you is eternal , for as My Sacrifice was a promise and a statement of My Love coming down through the Father ! It is Now time for You to SURRENDER wholeheartedly to Me . I need to see a heart opened forth right and true ; to discern My Presence ! That you make " ALL " Known to Me ~ free for release and in this surrender as you raise your hands and lower your defenses and pride I WILL COME ! And My SPIRIT ,...

China now rehearses capture of Tibet passes A year after conducting its first live military exercise in Tibet, China has for the first time rehearsed capture of mountain passes at heights beyond 5,000 metres with the help of armoured vehicles and airborne troops. The Chinese Defence Ministry makes this claim in a short official report that describes the exercise as the “first joint actual-troop drill of the PLA air and ground troops under information-based conditions in frigid area with a high altitude”. The joint drill involved the Chinese Air Force, ground troops, armoured columns and a range of support entities....

In recent times, the world has witnessed a major surge in regional unrests caused primarily by the shortage of water. Tension builds up between two or more countries when an effort is made by any upper riparian country to control the waterways of transboundary rivers. Factors like population surge, industrialization and other development activities compel a country to control waterways. When such activities begin to affect the livelihood, ecology and growth of the lower riparian countries, they become a source of dispute. As in other parts of the world, tension has also been growing both in South Asia and Southeast...

(CNN) -- China spoke out strongly Sunday against a meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, saying it "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and harmed Sino-U.S. relations." "This action seriously interfered with China's internal affairs," said Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in a statement, adding that officials have lodged formal complaints with their U.S. counterparts in Beijing and Washington. Obama met with the Dalai Lama on Saturday in Washington, commending the Tibetan spiritual leader on his commitment to nonviolence and pursuit of the "Middle Way" approach with China, the White House...

Open the doors of your sanctuary , Invite all that are willing to see , Each and every color of skin , Invite them all so then you truly may begin , To worship Me in Spirit and Truth , Invite them all both the old and the youth , The weary , the poor ,the forsaken and lost , Bring them in at any cost , For I shall cover all your needs , For My heart for My children bleeds and bleeds , For every church and steeple , temple and sanctuary , To come together "AS ONE"...

Even though Penn and Teller are atheists, they don't spare any religion, or religious figures, and the Dalai Lama is no different, also a nice summery of why no one should be surprised that the Dalai Lama is a marxist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYEOSCIOnrs

Indian, Pakistani and Chinese border disputes Fantasy frontiers May 18th 2011, 12:25 by The Economist online Disputed borders are both a cause and a symptom of tensions between big neighbours in South Asia. When the colonial power, Britain, withdrew from India it left a dangerous legacy of carelessly or arbitrarily drawn borders. Tensions between India and China flare on occasion, especially along India’s far north-eastern border, along the state of Arunachal Pradesh. In recent years Chinese officials have taken to calling part of the same area “South Tibet”, to Indian fury, as that seems to imply a Chinese claim to...

Army presents three-point plan to counter China Mail Today Bureau | New Delhi, May 19, 2011 Army chief General V.K. Singh has presented a three-pronged strategy to counter China's growing presence in the Tibet Autonomous Region and its recent activities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The proposal came at a recent meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that was attended by the army chief as well as top bosses of the security establishment. Singh pitched for a dedicated mountain strike corps, significant enhancement in the army's tactical airlift capability and improvement in the border infrastructure. The army had long been pushing...

Profitable medicinal fungus a cash cow in rural communities. Harvesting of a parasitic fungus that grows high on the Tibetan Plateau in China is infusing hordes of cash into rural communities, scientists say. The fungus, Ophiocordyceps sinensis, takes over the bodies of caterpillar larvae then shoots up like finger-size blades of grass out of the dead insects' heads. (See related pictures: "'Zombie' Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi.") Known as yartsa gunbu—or "summer grass winter worm"—by Chinese consumers, the nutty-tasting fungus is highly valued for its purported medicinal benefits, for instance, as a treatment for cancer and aging and as...

Chinese security forces continue to surround the Kirti Tibetan monastery in Sichuan after local residents tried to stop them from arresting the 2,500 monks holed up inside. The standoff began earlier this week, when hundreds of people living in Sichuan's Aba region converged on the monastery determined to stop police from removing the monks for reeducation. The monks could soon face food shortages because they depend on offerings from locals, the Voice of America reports. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. is concerned about China's actions in Aba, which it called it inconsistent with the internationally recognized principles...

A Tibetan Buddhist monk burned himself to death in western China on Wednesday, triggering a street protest against government controls on the restive region, a group campaigning for Tibetan self-rule said. The self-immolation appeared to be a small repeat of protests that gripped Tibetan areas of China in March 2008, when Buddhist monks and other Tibetan people loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama, their traditional religious leader, confronted police and troops. The 21-year-old, named Phuntsog, was a monk in Aba, a mainly ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province that erupted in defiance against Chinese control three years ago. The monk...

DHARMSALA, India (AP) -- The Dalai Lama said Thursday that he will be giving up his political role in Tibet's government-in-exile, shifting that power to an elected representative. The Tibetan spiritual leader, speaking on the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in the Himalayan region, said the time has come "to devolve my formal authority to the elected leader."

NEW YORK (AFP) – When British climbing legend George Mallory took his iconic 1921 photo of Mount Everest's north face, the mighty, river-shaped glacier snaking under his feet seemed eternal. Decades of pollution and global warming later, modern mountaineer David Breashears has reshot the picture at the same spot -- and proved an alarming reality. Instead of the powerful, white, S-shaped sweep of ice witnessed by Mallory before he died on his conquest of Everest, the Main Rongbuk Glacier today is shrunken and withered. The frozen waves of ice pinnacles -- many .. the size of office buildings -- are...

Chinese President Hu Jintao sought to assure U.S. business leaders on Thursday that his country is an economic partner and not a military threat to America or anyone else. But he rejected foreign interference on issues such as Tibet and Taiwan. "We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development," Hu told a U.S.-China Business Council luncheon. "We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy."

Fast forward into troubleFour years ago, Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan's first crime wave - murder, fraud, drug offences. Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy report from a country crash-landing in the 21st century Saturday June 14, 2003The GuardianApril 2002 was a turbulent month for the people of Bhutan. One of the remotest nations in the world, perched high in the snowlines of the Himalayas, suffered a crime wave. The 700,000 inhabitants of...

Remember the HOPI ELDERS? Well, they're baaaack and this time they are fortified with 1200 year old Tibetan Prophecy. I don't know about the Hopis but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the ancient Tibetans had predicted a bizarre tribe called the Dopis who posted this laughable THREAD titled, "Att: DU Buddhists - Tibetan Prophecy Shared With Hopi people." So let us now watch the DUmmies be awed once again by Hopi and Change in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, donning his Billy Jack hat, is in the [brackets]: Att: DU Buddhists - Tibetan...

It's a bit like our Lassi Festival. Ok, so we don't have a Lassi Festival, but the lines of people winding their way up to the Drepung monastery to celebrate Shoton, the Tibetan Yogurt Festival, have all the signs of a Kumbh. Most of those walking from Lhasa in the 6.20 am darkness are pilgrims to In Tibet, only Lonely Planet carries a statutory warning Drepung, some 20 minutes by road from central Lhasa. The remainder are like Confucian me are curious folks getting a glimpse into the heart of Tibetan culture in Tibet. The climb up the steps, not...

It’s a princess. Khandro Tseyang, the queen of Shambhala, a branch of Buddhism, gave birth to a girl Wednesday morning at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. “Apparently the birth was very smooth,” Richard Reoch, president of the Shambhala Centre in Halifax, said in an interview Wednesday. Besides king Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the birth was attended by immediate family members, a midwife and the family’s personal physician, Mitchell Levy of the Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. “The birth was cheerful, uplifted and free of complications. Both mother and child are healthy and resting well,” Levy said...

The Dalai Lama has sent a message of support for Armed Forces Day, which is next Saturday. In it, he writes of his admiration for the military. That is perhaps not so surprising. As he explains, there are many parallels between being a monk and being a soldier – the need for discipline, companionship, and inner strength. But his support will take some of his western admirers by surprise, not least when it comes to his thoughts on non-violence. Attitudes towards violence in Buddhism are enormously complex. There are some traditions that argue aggression, and killing in particular, is always...

In the popular imagination, Tibet is a land of snow-capped mountains and sweeping vistas, fluttering prayer flags, crystal blue skies, saffron-robed monks spinning prayer wheels... SNIP Tibet's enduring hold on Western minds -- together with the energetic, globe-trotting advocacy of the Dalai Lama -- helps explain why the concerns of the region's minority population are so familiar to so many so far away. (By comparison, it took violence in the streets of Urumqi to awaken foreign readers to the agitation of another of China's minority groups, the Uighurs.) In the Washington, D.C., neighborhood where I live, more than a few...

Crackdown on Tibetan Ringtones 2010-05-21 Authorities in Tibet ban popular ringtones characterized as 'separatist.' Screen grab from a video of the song "The Hope of the Son of the Snow-City," taken from Tudou. HONG KONG—Students and teachers at a high school near the Tibetan city of Shigatse have been told to delete certain popular Tibetan-language songs from their cell phones after they were designated "unhealthy" by local education officials, according to its Web site. The school announced recently that owing to the "increasing complexity of separatism," a list of 27 popular Tibetan-language tracks had been banned, whether in audio or...

So the Dalai Lama says he’s a Marxist. Well, good for him. He says Marxism has better morals than Capitalism. Oh really? I guess he’d say the same about the slave plantation too, then. Marxism and the slave plantation have a lot in common. Really not much difference at all. Tell me where I am wrong?Libertas

TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him. "Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures. "(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

TIBETAN spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to China, the communist country that exiled him. "Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived today with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures. "(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said. However, he credited China's embrace of market economics for breaking communism's grip over the world's most populous country and forcing the...

Diplomacy: The administration's apology tour continues with a mea culpa to the world's worst human-rights violator for Arizona's enforcement of U.S. immigration law. You'd think Tiananmen Square was in Phoenix. In talks last week with China on the subject of human rights, the U.S. delegation volunteered how sorry we were for Arizona's decision to protect its citizens and its border against illegal immigration — the operative word being "illegal." You would assume the Chinese broached the subject to blunt any criticism of their policies and record. But our delegates beat them to it by groveling on their own initiative in...

Most Tibetans are genetically adapted to life on the "roof of the world," according to a new study. The Tibetan Plateau (map) rises more than 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level. At such heights, most people are susceptible to hypoxia, in which too little oxygen reaches body tissues, potentially leading to fatal lung or brain inflammation. To survive the high life, many Tibetans carry unique versions of two genes associated with low blood hemoglobin levels, the researchers found. Since hemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells, the find might seem "really counterintuitive," said study leader Tatum Simonson...

Bild.de]Russia refuses the Dalai Lama entry. The buddhist Community reported that the foreign minister in Moscow refused the visa with consideration of China's objections.

Following a serious earthquake that hit China's Qinghai province, hundreds of people, mainly of Tibetan nationality, are believed to have died and thousands more are injured. The China Earthquake Administration put the magnitude at 7.1, which is just a little higher than the earthquake that hit Haiti back in January. The US Geological Survey have reported it being a little lower at 6.9. Whatever the exact figure, there are people in danger and, with this being such a remote area, rescue attempts are being seriously hampered. A particular point of concern is that temperatures are around zero and, without shelter,...

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This is a glorious NASA image from The Earth Observatory. The Himalayan Mountains in Southern China on Christmas Day, 2009. If you’d like a large version, you can soak in 4Mb of detail. I’ve posted it just  because it’s captivating and we are so fortunate (for all NASA’s failings) that we can marvel at a view like this. Note the scale (bottom right). These are rivers of ice one kilometer wide “unnamed”. Imagine what it would take to melt this ice?

The Chinese government has banned Bob Dylan from playing the Chinese leg of his 2010 tour. Dates in Beijing and Shanghai, part of Dylan's tour of east Asia, have been canceled due to the government's concern about the renowned folk singer's long-ago reputation as an "icon of the counterculture movement," according to the Guardian, citing Taiwan-based promoter Jeffrey Wu. Dylan, who puts on about 100 shows a year as part of his Never Ending Tour and has just finished up a Japanese leg, has also canceled dates in Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong.

Jakarta, Japan, France, Germany -- all unfairly bash him as though he were a ninkompoop. Even Obama's good buddy, Hugo Chavez, backstabbed him and makes jokes. Remeber the ways Obama honored our splendid ally, England? Brilliantly managing to insult the Dalai Llama and China at the same time, Obama finessed negotiations in the Olympics. Meeting par for the course, Biden wowed them in Israel.

March 11, 2010 Hundreds rounded up in Tibet crackdown Jane Macartney in Beijing Hundreds of Tibetans are being rounded up and detained in Lhasa and armed paramilitary groups are patrolling the streets in advance of the anniversary of fatal riots in 2008, The Times has learnt. Authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of the anti-Chinese attacks, in which about 20 people were killed when Tibetans rampaged through the city, setting fire to shops and offices. This month marks a particularly sensitive period in the region as March 10 is also regarded by Tibetans as the anniversary of the start...

<p>About 30 seconds into his opener “The Passenger” at New York’s Carnegie Hall Friday night, Iggy Pop declared, “Aw, fuck this shirt,” tore off his black V-neck sweater and tossed it stage right to a waiting Patti Smith, who caught it and giddily hopped up and down while swinging like she’d just caught a wedding bouquet.</p>

A letter leaked from an internal Administration source indicated that President Barack Obama apologized to the Chinese government for what he termed a “politically necessary” and “pro forma” meeting with the Dalai Lama. “I hope the Chinese government will understand that, for political reasons in America, I must appear to sympathize with Tibet’s quest for religious freedom,” Obama wrote. “Inviting Tenzin Gyatso for tea at the White House enabled me to fulfill this need. But the meeting was strictly pro forma and should not be interpreted as being, in any way, critical of China’s subjugation of the Tibetan people.” In...

The Dalai Lama and U.S president Barack Obama met for the first time at the White House today, defying furious protests from China. The two Nobel Peace Prize winners seemed intent on keeping the meeting low-key, in order avoid worsening tensions between the two countries. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who was also denied a meeting in the Oval office, left via a side entrance where rubbish bags were piled up and The White House didn't release photos of the meeting until several hours afterwards. Wearing sandals and burgundy robes, he said he had expressed to Mr Obama his admiration for...

I think we can safely say the left has ceded their moral superiority on human rights. Afraid of offending their Chinese baker friends, they block the press from their meeting and then send their holy guest out the side door where the trash is sent.

On July 3, 1942, only seven months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a personal letter to the then seven-year-old Dalai Lama that was to be carried to Tibet's spiritual leader in Lhasa by the OSS officers, Major Ilya Tolstoy, grandson of the famous novelist, and Captain Brooke Dolan, Harvard-educated experienced South Asia and China hand. It took these two intrepid adventurers until December to overcome the political, diplomatic, and physical obstacles between Washington and the very distant Tibet. Friendship between the United States and the spiritual leadership of Tibet was the intent, and...

Defying anger from China, US President Barack Obama will on Thursday meet with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who plans to seek his assistance in finding a solution in his homeland. The Nobel Peace Prize laureates will speak away from the cameras in the White House Map Room for a meeting the US administration calls private but which China has warned could worsen relations between the Pacific powers. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, landed in snowy Washington on Wednesday and immediately joined a group of fellow Tibetan exiles as they celebrated their new year,...

President Barack Obama still plans to meet with exiled Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama despite recent protests from Chinese officials, according to the White House. "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," said Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton aboard Air Force One. "To be clear, the U.S. considers Tibet to be a part of China and we have human rights concerns about the treatment of Tibetans," Burton continued. Although a date for the meeting has not been announced, Burton emphasized that the...

Vadodara: His Holiness the Dalai Lama is known for his wisdom and witty remarks so no one was surprised when he declared on Friday that he cannot say that Buddhism is the best religion. Speaking at International Convention on Buddhism in Vadodara, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet said, “We cannot say that one religion is best. I am a Buddhist but I can’t say Buddhism is the best religion. It depends on a person’s perception that what is best for him.” He further added that, “We should respect all religions. India is a secular country where all the religions...

China is to build the world's highest airport, at an altitude of 4,436 metres (14,500ft), in Tibet. The construction, at Nagqu, is likely to be a daunting task given the altitude and climate, with average temperatures staying below zero throughout the year.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Chinese court has handed a six-year prison term to a Tibetan film-maker who made an internationally watched documentary in which ordinary people aired grievances, his family said Wednesday. Dhondup Wangchen, 35, had trekked across the Himalayan territory for five months asking about topics including Chinese rule, the exiled Dalai Lama and the Olympics which Beijing was preparing to hold in August 2008. The self-taught film-maker was arrested in March that year as major protests erupted in Tibet. He had just completed the film, "Leaving Fear Behind," which has since been screened in more than 30 countries....

China has sentenced a Tibetan Buddhist lama to more than eight years in jail for illegal possession of ammunition and embezzlement. The monk, Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche, denies all charges, his lawyer said. The man described as a Living Buddha was arrested after nuns at his temple protested against a crackdown on Tibetan Buddhism. This had followed anti-China riots that erupted in Lhasa in 2008 and spread through the Himalayan region. Delay Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche "was charged with illegal possession of ammunition and embezzlement, but he denied all charges," lawyer Jiang Tianyong told AFP. He had been arrested on 18 May...

As Barack Obama prepares to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the Dalai Lama tells Sky News he believes the award is "a little early". He also cautioned the US president against relying too much on his advisers. The exiled Tibetan leader won the Nobel prize 20 years ago for his peaceful opposition to Chinese rule in his country. President Obama is in Norway to collect his award, which he has controversially been awarded in his first year in office. Some commentators have joked that the award was for "not being George Bush". The Dalai Lama told Sky News:...

December 4, 2009 Tibetan singer Tashi Dondrup arrested over 'subversive' CD Tashi Dondrup: CDs sold out quickly Jane Macartney in Beijing Chinese authorities have arrested a popular young Tibetan singer, accusing him of composing subversive songs. Tashi Dondrup was detained yesterday afternoon while in hiding in the western city of Xining, capital of Qinghai province, where he had taken refuge after the authorities banned his music. The 30-year-old professional singer released an album titled Torture without Trace last month, sources told The Times. It comprises 13 songs expressing nostalgia for the exiled Dalai Lama and remembering the crackdown that followed...