Opinions

China's new Premier, Wen Jiabao, is visiting Canada for the first time and as fate would have it, he arrives in our nation's capital on International Human Rights Day.

Tibetan refugees trek for weeks across the frozen Himalayas, slipping past Chinese border guards in search of freedom and a glimpse of the Dalai Lama. Yet soon after finding their way to this bucolic colonial hill station, the new arrivals search for a way out.

During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's current visit to the United States he is certain to hear calls asking him and his colleagues to work out a resolution to what would seem to be a solvable problem

They had waited for him since dawn, sun-drenched along an uneven mountain road. But when the Dalai Lama’s motorcade swept by, his passing wave left many vaguely disenchanted.

Unlike in the democratic countries, under the Chinese communist regime, the people do not enjoy the right to adult suffrage, that could well be inferred as one of the many needs of the Chinese people.

A few years ago when we first started to organize our boycott campaign, and even last year when we first launched it internationally, we were essentially speaking to a world quite happy to go on buying cheap Chinese products and one that didn't really care about the consequences.

Economic sanctions can help topple unjust regimes. In South Africa, we have direct experience of this. This makes it all the more ironic when South African companies invest in countries whose human rights records leave much to be desired or that are occupied by invaders.

Donkeys are a common form of transport here.

It was a September afternoon and I was freezing in the bus as it laboriously chugged up the mountain pass. The bus was old and rickety, the windows wouldn’t close and holes in the floor allowed me to see the road.

All major traditions in the world agree that negative emotions cause both physical and mental suffering. To be happy and free of suffering we need to cultivate positive attributes like compassion, generosity and loving-kindness.