Free Republic

Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican representative in the United States Congress and a long-standing critic of China’s human rights record, has announced he will lead an investigation into what he suspects was the systematic looting of Tibetan art and objects by Chinese authorities since the 1949 Communist revolution. The inquiry has coincided with a high profile auction in Beijing of artefacts that previously belonged to Tibetan monasteries, and which seeped out into international markets sometime last century before being bought by the leading Taiwan-based collector Wang Du.

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...