Free Republic

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Wednesday that "Europe belongs to the Europeans" and that refugees should return to their native countries to rebuild them. Speaking at a conference in Sweden's third-largest city of Malmo, home to a large immigrant population, the Dalai Lama -- who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 -- said Europe was "morally responsible" for helping "a refugee really facing danger against their life". "Receive them, help them, educate them... but ultimately they should develop their own country," said the 83-year-old Tibetan who fled the capital Lhasa in fear of...

Another Congressman Is urging President Obama to reconsider the appointment of Chas Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. As first reported by the JTA Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has sent the President a letter objecting to the appointment (see text below). Wolf complains about Freeman's support of Chinese actions against Tibetan democracy protests (he describes them as a "race riot" his work for the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC which skirts the US Boycott of Iran and his close financial ties to the Saudi regime. As seen in the picture below, at the end of his letter he hand...

Fossilized hand and footprints have revealed that mankind lived on the Tibetan plateau at the height of the Ice Age -- 16,000 years earlier than anyone previously thought. The 19 fossilized signs of life have also cast doubt on the theory that the plateau was fully covered by a glacier one kilometer thick at that time. The 20,000 year-old prints, 85 kilometers (53 miles) from Lhasa, predates any archaeological evidence on the plateau and suggests that man may have migrated to the "roof of the world" extremely early on. At the arid and frigid site, 4,200 meters above sea level,...

Trump White House accuses China of 'Orwellian nonsense' Beijing seeks to change US airline references to disputed territories Harsh statement released as US trade delegation returns The White House on Saturday condemned Chinese efforts to control how US airlines refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao as “Orwellian nonsense”. The harshly worded statement came as a high-level trade delegation led by the Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from negotiations in China. The carriers were told to remove references on their websites or in other material that suggests Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are part of countries independent from China, US...

TurkeyÂ’s ill-advised war in SyriaÂ’s Afrin enclave has further exposed how the Islamist regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his nationalist partners are mobilizing ChinaÂ’s Muslims, especially the Uyghurs, for their proxy battles to advance political and religious goals. The clandestine web of networks that was set up by TurkeyÂ’s National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T) among Uyghurs and other Muslim groups from Central Asian countries involves not only transporting and facilitating jihadist fighters from ChinaÂ’s Xinxiang region, some of the fiercest and most battle-hardened militants who can only be compared to RussianÂ’s Chechens on the field, but also mobilization of...

Chinese netizens urge boycott of Marriott for calling Tibet a 'country' Source:Global Times Published: 2018/1/9 16:15:21 Chinese netizens called on the public on Tuesday to boycott global hotel chain Marriott International after it reportedly listed China’s Tibet Autonomous Region as a country in an email sent to members. A netizen named “zhongjusaodi” posted on Tuesday that Marriott International sent a questionnaire survey via email to its elite members to receive feedback on its service and asked them to choose their country. The list included the Chinese mainland, China’s Tibet, Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The netizen told the Global Times...

First domesticated 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, wheat and barley took vastly different routes to China, with barley switching from a winter to both a winter and summer crop during a thousand-year detour along the southern Tibetan Plateau, suggests new research... "Wheat was introduced to central China in the second or third millennium B.C., but barley did not arrive there until the first millennium B.C.," Liu said. "While previous research suggests wheat cultivation moved east along the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, our study calls attention to the possibility of a southern route...

Video at link.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in a talk sponsored by the Falun Dafa Association in Argentina, titled “An Evil Never Before Seen on This Planet”, which addressed a dark secret in today’s China: the forced removal of organs of people living in China, with Yu Zhenjie and Dong Yuhua. Both are survivors of forced labor camps and torture in that nation. The statements of Yu Zhenjie and Dong Yuhua yesterday had me in tears. For those who do not know, Falun Dafa is not a political doctrine, nor an economic theory, nor a militant protest movement. Falun Dafa, also...

Having made its mark in the tournaments held across the Indian sub-continent, the Tibetan Women’s soccer team had heartbreak as the United States (US) embassy denied a visa to the team members to travel to the country where they were to take part in the Dallas Cup. The Tibetan women’s football team was invited by former English football player and manager Gordon Harold Jago to the Dallas Cup, a famous friendly youth tournament having soccer stars like David Beckham and Wayne Rooney in the alumni list. Trained by Cassie Childers, a US woman footballer from New Jersey, under the aegis...

Students at the University of California, San Diego are protesting an upcoming visit by the Dalai Lama – claiming the Tibetan leader is “oppressive”. Chinese students are leading objections to the event, which will see the Dalai Lama give a commencement speech on graduation day. They have claimed that his presence is offensive because of his campaign to make Tibet more independent – contrary to the Communist government’s position that Tibet is a region of China under their control.

Donald Trump’s decision to break protocol and become the first president-elect in decades to speak by phone with a Taiwanese president was either a colossal blunder or a shrewd strategic coup, depending on which Beltway insider you ask. At the least, Trump’s divisive exchange with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has sparked a substantive debate about the nature of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations and the sanctity of Beijing’s version of the “One-China” policy, which codifies China’s inalienable sovereignty over Taiwan and Tibet. Yet, as Washington braces for potential blowback from Beijing, both critics and supporters of the Trump-Tsai exchange have overlooked one key...

IMAGE: Activists dressed as Chinese soldiers and a Tibetan monk perform a street drama depicting the Tibetan uprising 52 years ago against Chinese rule. Photograph: Pichi Chuang/Reuters Tibet continues to be an enigma to all visitors. My two visits have been no different. One sees massive Chinese investment in road and railway infrastructure. Modern skyscrapers are coming up at a frenetic pace to house migrants from the mainland. Yet, Tibet presents a sight of a state under foreign siege. A deceptive calm hides the underlying tension. There is no cheer in the air. The story of Tibet is a saga...

China's stealth figher J-20 spotted at world's highest civilian airport at 14,000 feet NEW DELHI: Days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels to China for the G-20 summit, an image has appeared of China's first stealth fighter, the J-20, reportedly at the Daocheng Yading airport in the high-altitude Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture which lies to the east of Arunachal Pradesh. The image of the stealth fighter, one of Beijing's most closely guarded military projects, appeared on Twitter and on two defence websites www.abovetopsecret.com and www.alert5.com, days after China warned India against deploying the supersonic BrahMos missile along the Himalayas. The Indian...

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.

..I was having a panic attack.What I wanted to know was: why now – my life was going uncharacteristically well – and what could I do about it? “You need to think about death for five minutes every day,” Ura replied. “It will cure you.” “How?” I said, dumbfounded. “It is this thing, this fear of death, this fear of dying before we have accomplished what we want or seen our children grow. This is what is troubling you.” “But why would I want to think about something so depressing?” “Rich people in the West, they have not touched dead...

Discovery of missing climbers, preserved in glacier, ‘brings closure and relief’ 16 years after deadly avalancheOn the slopes of Tibet’s Shishapangma — the world’s 14th-tallest peak, a glacial mountain that rises some 26,000 feet above sea level — a pair of European climbers stumbled upon the remains of a disaster that struck 16 years earlier. Locked under a layer of blue ice for more than a decade, but exposed in an early melt brought about by hotter than average weather, was another pair of climbers. Hikers David Goettler and Ueli Steck have, in all likelihood, found the resting place of...

A TERRIFIED man set himself on fire after claiming he came face-to-face with a Yeti – who told him he would die soon. The disturbed man was so scared by the "meeting" that he doused himself in petrol and set himself alight. The incident happened in the village of Malyy Manok, in the Republic of Khakassia, in south-central Russia. He said he came face to face with the mythical creature – also known as the Abominbal Snowman – in the Taiga forest. The man died from his injuries. Yetis are claimed to be large, ape-like beasts living in the Himalayan...

GENEVA – In a cafe lounge at the United Nations complex in Geneva, a Tibetan fugitive was waiting his turn earlier this year to tell diplomats his story of being imprisoned and tortured back home in China. The 43-year-old Buddhist monk, Golog Jigme, had broken out of a Chinese detention center in 2012, eventually fleeing to Switzerland. But his Chinese government pursuers had not given up.

When Saudi Arabia’s King Salman visited the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama did something that at least one news reporter characterized as “very unusual.” No, he did not bow again. After all, there’d be nothing unusual in that for Obama. But CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller took to social media to say the president appeared at the West Wing portico to personally welcome Salman: Obama’s behavior Friday was a far cry from how the Dali Lama was treated when visiting the White House in 2010, when the spiritual leader of Tibet was forced to exit through...