News

Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang (R) and Deputy Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Geoff Raby pose before a press conference yesterday in Beijing. [newsphoto.com.cn]

The seventh annual Sino-Australian human-rights dialogue was held Monday in Beijing. "The dialogue was positive, constructive and fruitful,'' said Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang, who led the Chinese delegation.

Official and unofficial reports from Tibet describe how dozens of nomadic and farming families are in the process of being moved out from their traditional land in the east of Chamdo prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region

Heavy monsoon rains have damaged roads in Dharamsala town in hilly Himachal Pradesh, causing hardships to the tourists. Nestled in the Dhauladhar Himalayan ranges, Dharamsala, the home of Tibetan spiritual head the Dalai Lama

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF) has called upon the United States to focus serious attention on the plight of Tibetan Buddhists and to make religious freedom a priority in U.S. foreign policy.

An Australian governmental delegation, led by Dr. Geoff Raby, deputy secretary of the Australian Foreign Ministry, is expected to visit Tibet this week following the seventh China-Australia Human Rights dialogue held in Beijing on July 28, 2003.

The Kalon Tripa of the Central Tibetan Administration has returned to Dharamsala after a successful tour of two of the Tibetan settlements in Central India. In what seem to have been a follow up his earlier visits to the Tibetan

A former Indian foreign secretary, A. P. Venkateswaran, has said that the new formulation of Indian position on Tibet, as contained in the India-China Joint Declaration, betrays Tibet and undermines India's legal case concerning the border dispute.

Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, concluded a three-day long sermon on Saturday at Nubra valley in Leh town. Nearly 15,000 devotees attended the sermon that stressed on religious tolerance among people of different faiths.

Australian and Chinese officials are meeting in the Chinese capital, Beijing, for annual human rights talks known as The Dialogue. Our China correspondent John Taylor reports the talks were first held in 1997 as a way of addressing human rights issues of mutual concern.