[IANS]

Dharamsala: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is all set to reach out to Indians in Hindi. The Hindi version of his official website will be launched Saturday. “His Holiness (Dalai Lama) often describes himself as ‘son of India’ and it’s only natural that his website (dalailamahindi.com) is made available in Hindi too,” Tenzin Taklha,addl secretary at the Dalai Lama’s office, told IANS.

 ”Now Hindi-speaking people will have online access through the Dalai Lama’s thoughts and other related news,” he said.

Both the English and Hindi websites would be updated simultaneously, Taklha added.

(View full story)

(The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws on a bipartisan vote, sending the most significant immigration policy changes in decades to the full Senate, where the debate is expected to begin next month.

The 13-to-5 vote came as the committee reached a deal on one of the final snags threatening the legislation — and agreed to hold off on a particularly politically charged amendment, which would have added protections for same-sex couples.

After intense behind-the-scenes negotiations, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, struck an agreement with the group of eight senators who drafted the original bill to address his concerns about visas for skilled foreign workers who could fill jobs in the high-tech industry.

By late afternoon on Tuesday, Mr. Hatch had said that he would support the bill out of committee, if not necessarily on the Senate floor, after the committee agreed, via a voice vote, to pass his amendment. (Read the Full Report)

 (View video)

Advice has been offered to members of the People’s Armed Police on combating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Photo: CAI JUN/EPA

[By Malcolm Moore / The Telegraph]

BEIJING: The leaked 25-page training manual was given to members of the People’s Armed Police charged with keeping order in Tibetan areas of Sichuan province.

Among the advice it offers are ways of combating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for paramilitary troops involved in recent atrocities.

One section is titled: “How should you deal with flashbacks of brutal episodes?” It specifically refers to an incident in Aba county on March 16, 2011 when a Tibetan monk named Phuntsok self-immolated in a market and to a protest on March 18, 2009 in Seda and Ganzi counties where Chinese armed police, confronted by protesting Tibetans, fired into the crowd. (View full report)

India’s decision to once again avoid reaffirming its commitment to a ‘One China policy’ has raised eyebrows in Beijing but Indian officials are playing down the omission of “Tibet” from the joint statement issued after talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Diplomats in Beijing say China seeks from every country, without exception, a reference to a ‘One China policy’ in a joint statement, seen as a fundamental Chinese core concern. China’s need to seek assurances from foreign governments on this is rooted in its decades-old sensitivities over Taiwan, though the term also refers to Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Macau, besides Taiwan, as being parts of China.

Considering that China views the issue as a core concern — and, in the past, even as a fundamental prerequisite for the establishment of diplomatic relations — Chinese analysts and diplomats were of the view that the omission would not be seen in Beijing as a routine matter. (View full article)

WASHINGTON – US lawmakers debating a landmark immigration bill on Monday approved the provision of 5,000 visas to Tibetan refugees to enter the United States over the next three years.

Citing “terrible” and increasing oppression by Chinese authorities against Tibetans, Senator Dianne Feinstein offered the matter as an amendment to the vast legislation aimed at fixing the US immigration system.

Feinstein said the measure, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by voice vote, would ease conditions for displaced Tibetans living in India and Nepal, where she noted Tibetan resettlement facilities are more than 50 years old. (View full report)

By Edward Lucas

The West must unite to resist Chinese bullying against those who meet Tibet’s leaders

[Petitions24.com]

To:

Xu Zhiyong appeared in the Chinese edition of Esquire in August 2009, while he was being detained for alleged tax evasion.

Rights defense lawyer Xu Zhiyong has continued his advocacy despite years of setbacks. The Open Constitution Initiative, a legal assistance NGO he and several other lawyers founded in 2003, was shut down in 2009 by Beijing officials, citing tax evasion. After writing a blog post about the New Citizens’ Movement last May, Xu was detained overnight. In the run-up to the National People’s Congressthis February, Xu was one of 100 signatories to an open letter to the Chinese government calling for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Xu was put under house arrest during the Congress. He lectures at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, but has been barred from teaching because of his activism.

In an April 12 blog post, Xu describes how the police pulled him from a flight to Hong Kong and questioned him about the New Citizens’ Movement and public dinners he has helped organize to discuss issues of civil rights and democracy. Both this blog post and his April 23 essay on the New Citizens’ Movement are translated below.

On April 12, I was on my way to Hong Kong to participate in the “Symposium on the 10th Anniversay of the Sun Zhigang Case” at the invitation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Teng Biao. I went through border control waited for my flight. “See you this afternoon,” I told Teng.

 

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In his rare appearance before a Washington audience, the head of the Tibetan administration in exile said that though he has no complaints or regrets, but he wish India could have done more for Tibet.

India and China are increasingly facing off each other because Tibet is no longer a “buffer zone” between them, the leader of Tibet’s exiled government has said, noting that “pre-1949 there was hardly even a policeman on the border”.

Highlighting the importance of the strategic Himalayan region for India, Tibetan Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay said, “There was never incursion in ’40s and ’30s because India and China were never next to each other. Tibet always served as the buffer zone. Now they are facing off each other.” (View full report)