The boy chosen by Beijing as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's second-highest figure, met with China's top legislator and expressed support for the Communist Party, state media reported.
Gyaltsen Norbu presented Wu Bangguo (
"He vowed to support the [Chinese Communist Party, CCP] leadership and make more contributions to the Tibetan economy and social harmony by guiding more religious work to adapt to China's socialist society," it said.
Wu encouraged Norbu, 17, to "take responsibility to enhance China's reunification and do more things that could benefit the country," the report said.
The exchange took place amid increased sensitivity over China's continued attempts to subvert Tibetan Buddhist culture and strengthen Beijing's hold on the Himalayan region. Rights groups and Tibetan exiles are using the upcoming Beijing Olympics as a platform to support their cause.
Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has said he will skip the Aug. 8 to Aug. 24 Olympic Games in a move being linked to his support of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader who fled to India in 1959 following an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.
Tibetans say their territory was independent when communist troops arrived in 1950 and the Dalai Lama has campaigned for autonomy to protect its culture. Beijing denies that Tibet has ever been independent and accuses the Dalai Lama of splittism.
The Dalai Lama is calling for peaceful protests during the Olympics as a way to remind the Chinese public of government policies the 72-year-old Nobel Peace laureate says are eroding the region's Buddhist culture.
In May 1995, the Dalai Lama chose six-year-old Gendun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama.
The boy and his family disappeared soon after and have not been heard from since. Human rights groups say the boy has been under house arrest since. China claims he is attending school and his identity is being protected.
Months later, Beijing named Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RSS