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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.

PARIS: President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, whose office announced Wednesday that he would, after all, attend the opening ceremonies of Beijing's Olympic Games, was warned by China on Tuesday not to meet with the Dalai Lama in France next month. China's ambassador to France, Kong Quan, told reporters there would be "serious consequences" for Chinese-French relations if Sarkozy meets the Dalai Lama, asserting that it "would be contrary to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs." Sarkozy has been vague on whether he will meet personally with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader in exile, regarded by China as a...

Dalai Lama sees Pope, says few Muslims "mischievous" By Stephen Brown ROME (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama said after meeting Pope Benedict on Friday that "a few mischievous Muslims" should not be allowed to give the Islamic faith a bad name. Muslims worldwide were offended by a speech by the Pope last month in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who said the Prophet Mohammed spread Islam by the sword. The backlash has been sometimes violent and hardliners declared war on the Pope. The exiled spiritual leader of 6 million Tibetan Buddhists living under Chinese Communist rule said Benedict and...

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has released a letter purportedly from the Dalai Lama, asking K-F-C's parent company not to open a chicken restaurant in Tibet. The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying that while most Tibetans are not vegetarian, they eat larger animals, such as yaks, so that fewer animals will die. The letter says it hurts the Tibetan Buddhist leader to see plucked chickens hanging in meat shops in India and live chickens caged outside restaurants while they wait to be killed. In Louisville, a spokesman for K-F-C's parent company said, "We...

<p>BOSTON -- Dressed in crimson robes and matching running shoes, the Dalai Lama stood out amid the tweed-wearing academics last weekend at MIT, yet the Tibetan leader was hardly out of place.</p> <p>The 68-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner has said many times that if he hadn't been fated to be a monk, he surely would have been an engineer. He has had a lifelong fascination with science and a natural curiosity for understanding the way things work.</p>

THE Dalai Lama has questioned whether the war on terrorism was the best response to the September 11 attacks by Osama bin Laden. Less than a week after the terrorist jetliner bombings, Tibet's spiritual and political leader suggested diplomats meet those responsible to discuss the frustrations that led to the attacks. A month later, after addressing the European Parliament, the Nobel laureate again called for a non-violent approach. But at a press conference in Melbourne today, the Dalai Lama admitted that talking to the al-Qaeda leader would probably achieve little. He could not suggest a short-term solution to the terrorist...