A Tibetan taxi driver has set herself on fire and died in the latest of dozens of protests against Chinese rule over the Himalayan region, overseas rights groups said.
Chagmo Kyi, a mother of two, self-immolated on Saturday afternoon in a square in Tongren County in western China’s Qinghai Province, the eighth self-immolation in the area since Nov. 4, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said in an e-mail.
According to the group, 75 people have self-immolated in ethnically Tibetan areas since February 2009, and most of them have died.
Tibet support groups overseas say an increase in protests over the past two weeks was meant to highlight Tibetans’ unhappiness with Chinese rule as its leaders handed over power to younger successors at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Party Congress in Beijing.
Tibetan delegates attending the party congress told reporters they believed much of the blame for the spate of self-immolations fell on the Dalai Lama, Tibetans’ spiritual leader, and his associates, whom they said were instigating the protests. The Dalai Lama and representatives of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India say they oppose all violence.
The International Campaign for Tibet reported that hundreds of Tibetans were surrounded by troops as they attended Chagmo Kyi’s cremation at a site normally used for the cremation of monks and lamas.
The group said the woman had frequently driven between Tongren and Xining, the provincial capital, and was also a farmer.
London-based Free Tibet also reported the self-immolation, and said at least 20 trucks, each carrying 20 armed police officers, were stationed at intersections in Tongren’s capital, Rongwo, where people have previously self-immolated.
It also said there were reports of cars, each with about five government officials inside, positioned every 20 paces along most streets, monitoring the population.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of