[duff_beer_dragon]

good news, first time I heard anything of the sort ( Tibet ):
Michael Palin's current BBC1 TV series had good reports on Tibetian people's experience of China in Tibet. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, as to those Star Wars and related movie connections to the exiled Tibetian Buddhists.

[Such]

the frogurt is also cursed[/b]

"ooo, that's bad"

"but you get your choice of topings!"

"ooo, that's good"

"the topings contain potasium benzoate"

?!

"that's bad."

"can I go now?"

[Munqi]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia- ... 79283.html


New wave of riots coming up?

[Sixstrings]

China 'closes Tibet to foreign visitors'

Authorities in China have closed Tibet to foreign tourists, according to a number of travel agents, following months of protests and unrest.

Last month two Tibetans set fire to themselves outside Jokhang temple in Lhasa, a Buddhist shrine that receives thousands of visitors each day. Although at least 37 people have carried out similar protests since March last year, it was the first recorded self-immolation attempt in Lhasa, a popular destination for foreign tourists.

Several Beijing-based tour operators have since claimed that the Chinese National Tourist Office (CNTO) has told them to stop taking foreign visitors to Tibet indefinitely.

Nobody from the Chinese Embassy in London or the CNTO was able available to comment, but Explore – a British operator whose next tour to the region begins on June 28 – said that a ban could last for the duration of Saga Dawa.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9314556/China-closes-Tibet-to-foreign-visitors.html

Yikes, even North Korea allows tourists in.

Tibetans want: religious freedom, freedom to have a picture the dalai lama on their wall, they want their buddhist lamas no longer kidnapped and held under house arrest while China puts their own lamas in. China is committing cultural genocide in Tibet, and it's wrong.

Will Australia have anything to say about this? Or can China do no wrong, because it's good for business?

Also in the news, Chinese government now requires bloggers to use their real names and not be anonymous -- presumably so they can go kidnap them and hold under house arrest / throw in prison:

China to tighten Internet control with new rules

China said Thursday it planned to extend nationwide a requirement for microblog users to register with their real names as part of a sweeping update of rules governing the Internet.

...

"Many new situations have arisen, (we) are facing new problems," said the ministry, which regulates the industry.
It added the new rules aimed to "promote healthy, orderly development of the Internet, protect state security and public interest".
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-tighten-internet-control-rules-223751989.html

[Timo]

Is it allowable here to opine that the world, as we currently are witnessing it unravel, is becoming more and more of a collosal clusterfuck? Perhaps Flustercuck, or Fustercluck. Humanity, as a whole, insists on destroying itself for our own individual, personal, ideological gains. (Multiply that by 7 billion. Tomorrow - 8 billion.)

[AgentR11]

Tibet's a tough nut for Beijing to crack. China sees it as part of its territorial integrity, an absolutely non-debatable issue. And, they want Han to move there and live there. The monasteries do not want the Han to come. I don't want to put any negative spin on either's motives, but what is certain, is that the number of Han living in Tibet will continue to rise, and one should expect the Han to outnumber the Tibetan ethnic groups within a relatively short period of time. (if they don't already) The more modern Tibet becomes, the more attractive living there will become; and there are a LOT of Han who could move there.

Also certain... Tibet, for the foreseeable future, will remain part of the People's Republic of China.

So even if the hollywierd folks got their way, by the time Tibet became "free"; any reasonable democratic election in the region would produce a Han majority government that would take no orders or instructions from certain religious organizations that reside there.

This process simply can not, and will not be undone.

[Plantagenet]

..the number of Han living in Tibet will continue to rise, and one should expect the Han to outnumber the Tibetan ethnic groups within a relatively short period of time. (if they don't already) ...

Demography is destiny.

[SeaGypsy]

Will Australia have anything to say about this? Or can China do no wrong, because it's good for business?

Australians won't be happy, but Australia won't say much. We have an annual sit down with the Chinese about human rights and such issues are lumped together, rather than getting stuck into what would become a never ending argument.

Tibetan Buddhists have long advised interested adventurers to travel to Dharamsala for communion with the DL or the monks. To have a proper conversation about Tibet/ China, in the context of human rights, it is a good idea to know something about human rights in old Tibet. The presumption that China's record is infinitely worse is quite wrong. Footbinding, amputation of unneeded limbs for recalcitrant servants, artists, ostracism, deliberate starvation and poisoning, very poor treatment of less powerful tribes within Tibet; were all common actions of the Lhasa state. It's not a simple situation like it is portrayed in the west.

[Keith_McClary]

Yikes, even North Korea allows tourists in.

Gaza might be a better comparison.

[Sixstrings]

Tibet - Frightening development.

Indeed. Won't be any foreigners with their pesky human rights to see what goes on now.

Time for action, starting with trade embargoes.

I'm with ya. Hopefully UK and US sticks together. "Special relationship" isn't hyperbole -- solid centuries long permanence matters, US knows it can count on Britain and vice versa.

Getting off topic here, but people in the US appreciate how Britain stood with us in Iraq in Afghanistan. Maybe the war was wrong, doesn't matter, but the UK is our staunchest ally. As a voter, anything UK ever needs I fully support.

[Sixstrings]

Australians won't be happy, but Australia won't say much. We have an annual sit down with the Chinese about human rights and such issues are lumped together, rather than getting stuck into what would become a never ending argument.

Because Australia is so close and does so much business, IMO they have a moral responsibility to at least issue a statement about things like this. As does the US for that matter, but Australia is closer to China.

Silence is the worst degree of appeasement. Fine, do business, but what's patently wrong must be acknowledged or eventually it becomes okay everywhere.

Tibetan Buddhists have long advised interested adventurers to travel to Dharamsala for communion with the DL or the monks. To have a proper conversation about Tibet/ China, in the context of human rights, it is a good idea to know something about human rights in old Tibet. The presumption that China's record is infinitely worse is quite wrong. Footbinding, amputation of unneeded limbs for recalcitrant servants, artists, ostracism, deliberate starvation and poisoning, very poor treatment of less powerful tribes within Tibet; were all common actions of the Lhasa state. It's not a simple situation like it is portrayed in the west.

Ugh, SG, there you go again.. I like you don't get mad at me, but you consistently apologize and enable China. This is wrong, man, there's no defending it. The dalai lama has said many times that old Tibet needed reforms and modernization, and he was going to do it. He's a good man. He stepped down as political leader of the exile government and they have democracy now.

What we're talking about here are FUNDAMENTAL human rights -- core culture, freedom from government kidnap and house arrest / imprisonment because of your religion or culture. China has people under house arrest for YEARS. Some of them are children, the lamas.

Anyhow, the exile government doesn't want autonomy and certainly not a return to ancient Tibet (as if China was some kind of picnic before 1950 give me a break puh-lease). They just want the cultural genocide to stop, harassment of monks and smashing of monasteries stopped, political / religious imprisonment stopped, and they want religious freedom.

(ps I was probably snarky bringing up Australia, but Aussie enabling attitudes about China is concerning, I can see it when you defend China, I mean WTH *nobody* defends China)

[Sixstrings]

More info from Voice of America:

Travel agents speculate that the unexplained ban could be due to Saka Dawa festival, a month long commemoration of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and passing, that traditionally attracts many Buddhist pilgrims to the region. Tibetan travel authorities have not given an official reason for banning foreign visitors nor set a date for lifting the ban.

China has sporadically banned foreigners to Tibet over the years. Tibet was closed to foreign tourists for more than a year in 2008 after large scale Tibetan protests rocked the region. In normal times China requires overseas tourists to obtain special permits to travel to remote region.

The recent self-immolations by Dorje Tsetan and Dhargyal ten days earlier on the 6th day of Saka Dawa, represented a major escalation in the scope of these protests in Tibet’s capital which had been under intense security since 2008. Since February 2008, there have been 38 self-immolation protests throughout Tibetan regions.
http://www.voanews.com/tibetan-english/news/China-Bans-Foreign-Tourists-to-Tibet-157806165.html

China is infringing on the religious rights of Indians and Nepalese here too, and Buddhists everywhere.

If people are so miserable in Tibet, maybe China should start respecting international human rights conventions, maybe then they'd have a bit less civil unrest. Building a wall and blocking out the world isn't a solution.

To be fair by the way, China has done a lot infrastructure-wise in Tibet. But on the other hand they're also wiping out the culture, so really the infrastructure is for Chinese not Tibetans.

[SeaGypsy]

I am not a China apologist, I just know both sides of the story and it's not black and white as you portray. There were scores of obscene human rights abuses under the previous Dalai Lama's reign, this one left as a child. There are still plenty of living victims of previous abuses by Lhasa temple/ city state authorities. The system prior to Chinese takeover was archaic in the extreme. Plenty of people get thrown under the bus by empires world over. Take a look at how many people in the USA are sleeping rough. How many are in prison for petty theft, shoplifting food? How many for self medication? You talk about the victimization of black youth still going on in main street USA. It'a all well and good to critic China, but understanding the arguments which are used to counter your arguments in China is a starting point to getting anywhere negotiating with the Chinese.

[dissident]

RasPutin, Ahmydinnerjacket and Huge Ginto(nic) etc are sorting the world out as I write, and it doesn't include us westerners.

Evil them, holy you, eh. How's Libya working out on the democracy front? What's that, Al Qaeda thugs are in charge now. But weren't you sanctimonious, bloody hypocrite crusaders supposed to free Libyans from Qhaddafi's oppression...

Time for action, starting with trade embargoes.

Bring it on. Perfect time to knock yourselves into a deeper economic hole and feel the full force of the depression brought on by collapse of your debt bubble economies dependent on raping the rest of the world for free resources.

[americandream]

Evil them, holy you,

Yes - that lot are not evil - they're BLOODY evil. Bad eggs the lot of em. Holy you - too true mate - I'm a true Englishman - and proud of our history - not perfect, but a damn sight better than the countries headed by the THUGS in the photo posted earlier. STUFF YOU and your self-righteneousness- where the hell are you from ?, what the hell has your country done for the world ?

As to Libya, well, we, the west, helped to sort it, but the arseholes of the east are hell bent on wrecking it have wrecked it, exactly same as in Syria right now - and you can't blame THAT on us, can you ?.

Dammed if we do, dammed if we don't - stuff it, it's in our english phsyce to DO, thats our history and legacy to the world, to get off our arses and DO. Because of our "DO", the WORLD speaks, reads and writes english - a language of a small insignificant island just off europe. (!!!!!) WHY ?

As to the economic argument - BOLLOCKS - Britain is one of the top 5 richest countries in the world. Don't forget our government own's the bankrupt banks that the rest of the world owe's money to, including the USA. It's all just numbers on a computer anyway, meaningless.

Do not ever forget - God is an Englishman. !!!!!!!!!!!!

Gasmon

You need to get some help, friend, seriously.

[Oneaboveall]

...God is an Englishman. !!!!!!!!!!!!

Conversely in hell, the English are the cooks.

[SeaGypsy]

Same with Russia, China, any country (inc N Korea) the corrupt elite outnumber the decent folks by many thousands to one.

Gas

Is this meant to be funny Gas? An 'elite' which outnumbers 'decent folks' is not an elite, it's the mandate/ main population.

[Tanada]

Tibet leader-in-exile concerned over construction of dams on Brahmaputra river by China

President of the Tibetian government-in-exile, Penpa Tsering, on Saturday, November 27, raised concerns over the construction of a dam on the Brahmaputra River by China. He further stated that the mega project may pose serious damage to lower riparian countries including India and Bangladesh.

Tsering told ANI, " China has been building multiple dams on all the rivers that originate from Tibet, some 32 dams on Mekong River alone before it enters the third country".

He mentioned that China is building a dam that is three times the size of the biggest dam in the world, the Three Gorges Dam.

Concerns are raised in the lower riparian nations in connection to the possible impact of the projects on the river as China heads with hydropower projects on the Yarlung Tsangpo river, which is one of the crucial sources of fresh water for both India and Bangladesh.

Tibetan President further questioned the consequences on India, Assam, and Bangladesh if the size of the river, to the dam, is altered. "There are very serious issues that need to be considered by all the riparian countries", he said.
Penpa Tsering opens up about developmental activities at the Tibetan border

Speaking of developmental activities engaged at the Tibetan border, Penpa Tsering said, "We do not have the exact report of all the developments taking place but some are visible now. news is coming on development that is happening on the border".

He further spoke of China's stance on Tibet and said that the state is 2.35 million square kilometers which is nearly 1/4th of China where Tibetans have resided for many centuries now. He questioned the China government on why Tibetans should move to the border regions and not settle in the cities or towns they are currently residing in.

He said, "It is just marginalization of Tibetans on the borders to send this message that Tibetans are guardians of the Tibetan border from the other side and if they are Tibetans in the Indian army, then the tussle could be between Tibetans and Tibetans".

Stating China's stance on Tibetans as 'propaganda', Tsering added that he will remain skeptical as the Chinese govt must hold trust in the Tibetan people who join the military. "This is a strategic issue, not a social or economic issue", he said.
Experts opinion on China's multiple dam constructions

According to experts, due to multiple small and big hydropower projects introduced by China, lower riparian nations are under serious threat.

While International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS), a Toronto-based think tank, has stated that the construction of hydropower dams which are built without the consideration of upstream and downstream ecosystems and landscape, will pose a significant impact on economic and environmental bearing on the project site, the adjoining and far-away regions.

Experts further informed that Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in India, that regions dependent on the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh will witness higher political and environmental implications.

LINK