The Dalai Lama has no immediate plans of visiting Hong Kong: Senior Tibetan official

His Holiness the Dalai Lama during opening prayers at the Tsug-la Khang at the start of the first day of his four day teaching given at the request of a group from India in Dharamshala, India on June 1, 2013. (Photo/Abhishek Madhukar)  June 5: Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama has no immediate plans of visiting Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region under the People’s Republic of China, according to a senior official at his Private Office. Quelling recent speculations sparked by a report on the South China Morning Post, Ngapa Tsegyam, Secretary at the Dalai Lama’s Private Office told a Tibetan radio service that His Holiness has no scheduled plans of visiting Hong Kong in the near future. The Post, on June 3, carried a report on a pending invitation to the Tibetan spiritual leader to visit Hong Kong this September sent by Philip Li Koi-hop, chairman of the Hong Kong Tibetan and Han-Chinese Friendship Association. “Yes, it is true that the Private Office received the letter and our concerned staff had immediately replied saying that His Holiness’ visit would not be possible for the time being,” Tsegyam told the Oslo based Voice of Tibet. “There is a lengthy process involved in organising His Holiness’ visit and it requires detailed planning.” He noted that the 78-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader follows a pre-planned schedule and will be visiting Europe this September. Tsegyam added that the Dalai Lama meets with many devotees from mainland China and Hong Kong and many disciples from Hong Kong have extended invitations. “When invited to visit Hong Kong, His Holiness has repeatedly said that if the Chinese government allows, he is most willing to visit,” the senior official said. The Dalai Lama maintains a busy traveling schedule, trying to accommodate as many requests as possible for his participation in events throughout the world. According to the website of the Private Office, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama made his first foreign visit outside Tibet in 1954 when he spent almost a year in China meeting with its leaders and touring various places. In 1956, His Holiness made his second visit abroad to India at the invitation of the Mahabodhi Society of India to attend the 2500th Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Lord Buddha.” After coming into exile in 1959, the Dalai Lama made his first visits abroad in 1967, visiting Japan and Thailand. In 1973, His Holiness made his first visit to the West, visiting 12 European countries. The Dalai Lama’s first visit to the Americas was to the United States and Canada in 1979.

Tibet burns with another self-immolation, Toll reaches 118

Tenzin Sherab in an undated photo. May 29: In reports coming just in, a Tibetan man set himself on fire in Adril region of eastern Tibet protesting China’s occupation and hard-line policies in Tibet. Tenzin Sherab, 31, carried out his self-immolation protest on May 27. He succumbed to his injuries at the site of his fiery protest. According to Jampa Younten, a monk living in south India, Tenzin Sherab’s family members and friends came to know about his self-immolation protest only after he had passed away. “Soon after the protest, Chinese security personnel from Chumar arrived at the site and confiscated Tenzin Sherab’s body,” Younten said. “However, the next day, on May 28, his body was handed over to his family members.” In the days preceding his self-immolation protest, Tenzin Sherab had spoken to his friends about the evil policies of the Chinese government and expressed his concern about Tibetan religion and culture reaching a point of annihilation. “We can no longer bear to live under China’s constant torture and repression,” Tenzin Sherab had told his friends. Preparations are afoot for his cremation, the same source added. Tenzin Sherab is the son of Dhondup and Choemey and is the eldest among five siblings. Since 2009, as many as 118 Tibetans living under China’s rule have set themselves on fire demanding freedom and the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from exile. The Chinese government has responded with even harsher policies, criminalising the self-immolation protests and sentencing scores of people to heavy prison terms on charges of “intentional homicide” for their alleged roles in self-immolation protests. Chinese officials have barred Tibetans from offering prayers and showing solidarity with families of self-immolators and announced the cancellation of development funds to those villages where self-immolations have taken place.

The Dalai Lama, Barack Obama most popular leaders says new survey

His Holiness the Dalai Lama attending the official function of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising in Dharamshala, March 10, 2009. (Phayul file)   May 31: A new pan-Atlantic survey has named Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the most popular leader in the world along with US President Barack Obama. In contrast, leaders with the least levels of popularity include China’s President Xi Jingping and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Harris Interactive, one of the world’s leading market research firms, announced the results after conducting a Harris Poll online among a total of 7,245 adults aged 16+ in France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain and adults aged 18+ in Italy and the United States between May 8 and 15, 2013. The poll, which measured “how good or bad opinions are of some well-known world leaders” showed the two Nobel Peace laureates, the Dalai Lama tied with President Barack Obama with the highest levels of popularity. The only leader who came close to the number one spot was Pope Francis. “Across the six countries, three-quarters of adults (78%) on average have good opinions of both President Obama and His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” the results concluded. For His Holiness, 86% of respondents in Italy, 85% in Spain, 81% in France, 79% in Germany, 70% in Great Britain and 64% in the US, have good opinions of him. In the US, Americans have higher opinions of The Dalai Lama (64%) and Pope Francis (61%) than they do of President Obama. The other end of the popularity spectrum is made up by some “controversial figures” from around the world with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (4%), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (6%), China‘s Xi Jinping (14%) and Vladimir Putin of Russia (19%). Harris Interactive noted that the data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population while using propensity score weighting to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. Harris Interactive is one of the world’s leading market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight.