Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Blum, husband of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer. He was 86. Feinstein announced her husband’s death in a statement Monday morning that said her “heart is broken today.” She said her husband, a wealthy San Francisco investor, “left things better than he found them” and was devoted to his family. She described his work for the people of the Himalayas and noted he was a longtime friend of the Dalai Lama. “My husband was my partner and best friend for more than 40 years,” Feinstein said in the statement....

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuanian cybersecurity experts are urging the country’s government agencies to abandon the use of Chinese-made smartphones after an investigation identified security vulnerabilities and censorship concerns with certain devices. Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Center said it found four major cybersecurity risks for devices made by Huawei and Xiaomi, including two relating to pre-installed apps and one involving personal data leakage, and warned against using these two brands. There’s also the risk of possible restrictions on freedom of expression with Xiaomi phones, which contain a content-filtering feature for 449 keywords or groups of keywords in Chinese characters. The...

(WNN) London, UNITED KINGDOM, WESTERN EUROPE: As a Buddhist myself I’ve been concerned like many others for over a decade about the treatment of indigenous Tibetans inside China, many who follow the spiritual teachings of the Dalai Lama, who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The changing face of modern China has had an open opportunity to bridge diversity of thought and religion within its borders over the last decade, but it has critically failed to do so. And it’s not just indigenous Tibetans who are feeling the pressures placed on them by the Chinese government today. Numerous youth...

International human rights organization Free Tibet is urging Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz to end their financial investment in a Chinese-owned company that operates in Tibet. In a May 17 letter to Kerry, Free Tibet Director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren called the Kerry family investment in a Chinese company, called Tibet Water Resources, Ltd. “inappropriate” and encouraged Kerry to “ensure that this investment comes to an end.” The company bottles and sells premium “luxury water” in competition with brands like Evian and Fuji.

A man set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Berlin on Monday night. Police said it was too soon to say whether it was part of a political protest. Amid tensions in Berlin over pro-Gaza protests and a rise in anti-Semitism, the 46-year-old doused himself in a flammable liquid and then set himself alight with a cigarette lighter at 11.45pm on Monday. Police said the man, who is of Arab descent, only suffered minor injuries outside the Israeli embassy in south-west Berlin. A police spokesman told The Local his feet and legs were burnt and he was now...

Some advertisers spooked by bad press over China By Kevin Downey Jul 8, 2008 In just one month, on Aug. 8, NBC will begin airing the Summer Olympics from China, but from the looks of things it's not shaping up all that well for NBC as it attempts to sell its remaining ad inventory. At the least, the Games are looking to be a disappointment for the network, say media buyers. A lot will depend on how viewers and advertisers respond to the Olympic trials now airing. Ad spending will most likely fall short of NBC’s goal of more than...

To: All I want to let the chinese that are really here for support know that I am sorry for being so rude,and crass during this time. Now I do not like the CCP at all and belive in democracy for everyone. I feel angry and jaded at the world at this moment in my life because someone really close to me in my family died a few weeks ago. I have had a rough year and can be very snappy and mean at times. I do apologize and my prayers go out to all the innocents lost. I was...

EU parliament Pres. says Olympics boycott should be considered By DPA and Haaretz Service Tags: Hans-Gert Poettering, China A boycott of this summer's Beijing Olympic Games should be considered if China does not re-evaluate its actions in Tibet, the president of the European Parliament said in an interview to be published in a German newspaper on Sunday. "Beijing must decide. It must negotiate with the Dalai Lama immediately," Hans-Gert Poettering told the mass circulation Bild newspaper. Poettering added that boycott measures were justified, if there was no attempt at reconciling the differences. "We should not exclude the possibility of a...

Chinese paramilitary police unload equipment on a road on the outskirts of Hutiaoxia, southeast of Zhongdian, in China's Yunnan province Thursday March 20, 2008. Hundreds of paramilitary troops were setting up camp in the town, which is on the road to Zhongdian, a city in a Tibetan area of Yunnan known as Shangri-La. (AP Photo/Greg Baker) BEIJING (AFP) — Thousands of soldiers were seen in Lhasa on Thursday amid reports of a huge military build-up, as the Dalai Lama expressed fears China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters had caused many casualties. Long military convoys were on the move in Tibet while...

BEIJING (AP) - China acknowledged for the first time Thursday that anti-government riots that rocked Tibet last week have spread to other provinces, while communist authorities announced the first group of arrests in connection with the violence. The moves came as the government sent armed police into far-flung towns and villages to reassert control in the Tibetan areas of western China as sporadic demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet continued to flare up. A top Beijing Olympics official vowed the unrest would not disrupt plans for the torch relay preceding this summer's Olympics in Beijing. One leg of the relay...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. aircraft carriers, including the USS Kitty Hawk, have been sent to the Taiwan region for training exercises during this weekend's Taiwanese election, a U.S. defense official said on Wednesday. The two warships were "responsibly positioned" in the Pacific Ocean somewhere east of Taiwan and would remain in place through Saturday's presidential election and referendum on U.N. membership, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He declined to elaborate on the positions of the two ships and could identify only the Kitty Hawk by name.

BEIJING - Among all the protests, pollution concerns and talk of boycotts surrounding the Beijing Olympics, a more basic problem has arisen for organizers: the toilets. At the more than 30 test events held by organizers, the presence of squat toilets at many of the new and renovated venues has drawn frequent complaints. "We have asked the venues to improve on this, to increase the number to sit-down toilets," Yao Hui, deputy director of venue management for the Beijing organizers, said Wednesday. "Many people have raised the question of toilets."

As Tibetans -- led by Buddhist monks -- rioted in the capital city of Lhasa, burning Chinese-owned businesses and attacking Chinese, Beijing clamped down on YouTube and other media outlets depicting the violence. The trouble began a week ago, when Buddhist monks demonstrated peacefully March 10 on the anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 that culminated in the Dalai Lama and most of the leading Buddhist monks in Tibet fleeing into exile. Friday, things went sour, with anti-Chinese violence erupting. Access to YouTube was blocked after about 20 videos of the violence in Tibet were shown...

When it comes to Western governments' contacts with the Dalai Lama, China talks loudly, but carries a little stick. Every time a president or prime minister meets with the exiled spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet -- as Prime Minister Stephen Harper did yesterday -- the Chinese threaten severe repercussions, typically the fraying of the trade arrangements Western corporations covet so much because of China's 1.3 billion consumers. But critics who, on this basis, warn against official meetings with the Dalai Lama need to remember one thing: China needs bilateral trade every bit as much as the West, perhaps more...

BERLIN (AFP) — China has summoned Germany's ambassador in Beijing to discuss Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to grant the Dalai Lama an unprecedented meeting this month, the German foreign ministry said Friday. A spokesman confirmed a report due to appear in Monday's edition of the Handelsblatt business daily that ambassador Michael Schaefer has been called to a meeting with Chinese authorities. The German government's chief spokesman, Ulrich Wilhelm, announced earlier on Friday that Merkel will receive Tibet's exiled spiritual leader at the chancellery in Berlin on September 23. It will mark the first time that the Dalai Lama has been...

An Australian mountaineer was among dozens of climbers at a Himalayan base camp who watched in horror as Chinese soldiers shot Tibetan refugees "like rats, dogs [and] rabbits", leaving at least one teenage nun lying dead in the snow. The incident, witnessed by international climbers and Sherpas at a camp on Mount Cho Oyu - about 20 kilometres west of Mount Everest - occurred on September 30 as a group of refugees, including many children, made their way across the 5700-metre-high Nangpa La Pass from Tibet to Nepal and then on to Dharamsala in India - the home of their...

DHARMSALA, India - The Dalai Lama said Friday that he has asked China to let him to visit the country for the first time since he fled Tibet nearly a half-century ago. His comments came in an address to thousands of followers on the anniversary of the 1959 uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule, which marked the beginning of his exile. The supreme Tibetan spiritual leader, 70, did he did not specify an itinerary, but said he wanted to make a pilgrimage. His envoys, who recently returned from talks with officials in China, had conveyed his request to the Chinese...

Tibetan welcome for Wen The Statesman[Thursday, April 07, 2005 09:54] NEW DELHI, April 6 — The Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Wen Jiabao, will be arriving in India within three days, Besides the Indian government, another group is also waiting to give the Chinese leader a welcome, albeit of a different sort. The two stops in the Chinese leader’s visit in India, Bangalore and Delhi, will also see demonstrations by Tibetan activists. Speaking to The Statesman, the public relations officer of the Tibetan Youth Congress, Mr Dhondup Dorjee said, “Our members have started to assemble in the two cities to hold...

I was in Europe this month to receive an award from the Geuzen Resistance 1940-1945 Foundation on behalf of the International Campaign for Tibet. The Geuzen Medal honors the memory of Dutch resistance heroes who fought the Nazis by recognizing those today who resist repression, discrimination and racism, and the Campaign was recognized for promoting human rights and self-determination in Tibet through nonviolent means. It was a very proud moment for those of us who care deeply about Tibet and the brave Tibetan people--and certainly for me as the Campaign's chairman. The cause of Tibet is now at a critical...

The spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, has crossed the border into India after an epic 15-day journey on foot from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, over the Himalayan mountains. There had been no news of his safety or whereabouts since he left Lhasa on 17 March with an entourage of 20 men, including six Cabinet ministers. Many thought he had been killed in the fierce Chinese crackdown that followed the Tibetan uprising earlier this month. Travelling at night The Dalai Lama had to cross the 500-yard wide Brahmaputra river, and endure the harsh climate and extreme heights of the...