A Tibetan man in his 50s set himself on fire and died at a prominent monastery in northwestern China in the latest such protest against Chinese rule over the Himalayan region, a London-based rights group said.
Free Tibet said the man, identified as Dhondup, set fire to himself near a prayer hall at the remote Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province on Monday.
Xinhua news agency quoted a provincial government official as saying a 63-year-old herdsman set himself ablaze at the monastery at about 9am on Monday. The report did not give the man’s name or say whether he survived.
The monastery is one of the most important outside of Tibet and was the site of numerous protests by monks following deadly ethnic riots in Tibet in 2008 that were the most sustained Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in decades.
Free Tibet said Monday’s self-immolation was the first to take place there and that there have been heavy restrictions in place in the area in recent months.
Citing a witness, it said the monastery manager and other monks prevented police from taking Dhondup’s body.
Dozens of Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March last year in ethnic Tibetan areas of China in protest over what activists say is Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in the region. Many have called for the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Chinese authorities routinely deny Tibetan claims of repression and have accused supporters of the Dalai Lama of encouraging the self-immolations. The Dalai Lama and his representatives say they oppose all violence.
“Tibetan protests are escalating,” Free Tibet director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement. “Dhondup is the eighth Tibetan in the last month alone who has risked his life to protest Chinese rule — seven of the eight have died.”
She said the Chinese government should recognize that Tibetan demands for freedom cannot be extinguished by force and that it “must enter into meaningful dialogue with Tibetan representatives, supported by the international community.”
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
RSS