China yesterday accused the Dalai Lama of being deceitful after he reportedly alleged that Chinese agents trained Tibetan women to assassinate him by planting poison in their hair for him to touch during blessings.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Tibetan spiritual leader’s allegations, reported in the London-based Sunday Telegraph newspaper, were not worth refuting, but added that he generally spreads false information.
“The Dalai always wears religious clothes while carrying out anti-China separatist activities in the global community, spreading false information and deceiving the public,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said at a routine daily news briefing.
The nationalistic tabloid the Global Times scorned the allegations in a commentary, saying that if China had wanted to kill the Dalai Lama it could have done so any time without waiting until he was 76 years old.
The Tibetan Buddhist leader told the Telegraph he had been warned that the Chinese government was training female Tibetan agents to put poison in their hair or scarves and to seek his blessings or touch his hand.
Hundreds of thousands of people take pilgrimages each year to the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama lives under tight security.
Huge crowds also surround him during his travels abroad.
The Tibetan leader usually places his hand over the heads of devotees seeking his blessing.
He told the newspaper he may end up being the last Dalai Lama because of Chinese interference in finding his reincarnation after his death.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS