News

The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet has arrived on Canadian soil for the first time in 11 years and is looking forward to meeting Prime Minister Paul Martin. ""If (Martin) asks me about the situation of Tibet, then certainly I will tell him," the Dalai Lama told reporters Saturday in Vancouver.

The Central Tibetan Administration will request the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) to call off its indefinite hunger strike, Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, the Kalon Tripa told the VOT radio service.

In what was seen as a display of China's power and influence in global politics, a resolution on human rights situation in China at the 60th session of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCHR) in Geneva was turned down.

The Dalai Lama sat before a group of rapt business leaders at UC Irvine on Friday, offering simple homilies to people who treated the Nobel Peace Prize winner's words as spiritual gold.

Victor Chan was a self-confessed, 20-something "Chinese hippie" making his way across Asia in a Volkswagen van when he tagged along with a girlfriend to meet the Dalai Lama in the northern Indian village the Buddhist monk called home.

Some nations excite our imagination by the magnificence of their landscape, the splendour of their culture or even their sheer remoteness. Other nations trouble our conscience like an open wound. Only Tibet does both.

In what may turn out to be the light at the end of the tunnel, Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, the Kalon Tripa said he expects a response from China within the next 2 weeks to his administration's request to 'discuss the matter of beginning the actual process of negotiations'.

Expat Tibetans are busily anticipating the imminent Canadian visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who arrives April 24. Monks are praying in their South Shore temple, other Tibetans are preparing thousands of momos - traditional Tibetan chow

Prime Minister Paul Martin's decision to meet the Dalai Lama, despite strong protests from China, is highly commendable. He will be the first Canadian prime minister to do so, joining a growing list of other world leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr. Bertrand Ramcharan, Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued a statement on 13th April 2004 on the three young Tibetans who are on indefinite hunger strike in front of United Nations headquarters in New York organized by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC).