News for Oct 2010

Tibetan exiles vote for Prime Minister

Tens of thou­sands of Tibetan exiles across the world went to polls to cast their bal­lots to nom­i­nate can­di­dates for the post of Prime Minister and mem­bers of the Tibetan Parliament-​​in-​​exile for the next year’s gen­eral elections.

Nepal police in Kathmandu dis­rupted Tibetan pre­lim­i­nary polls by con­fis­cat­ing bal­lot boxes already filled with thou­sands of bal­lots just an hour before the polls were due to be closed.

According to eye wit­nesses, sev­eral armed police arrived at dif­fer­ent polling booths located in dif­fer­ent parts of Kathmandu val­ley and con­fis­cated bal­lot boxes filled with thou­sands of votes. The Tibetan Parliament-​​in-​​Exile has called on the United Nations and Amnesty International for their help in ensur­ing the rights of Tibetans liv­ing in Nepal to con­duct demo­c­ra­tic elections.

Language protests in Tibet

Protests by thou­sands of Tibetan school and col­lege stu­dents over a Chinese edu­ca­tion reform plan to restrict the use of their lan­guage have spread from sev­eral areas of Qinghai to loca­tions in Amdo, plus a protest at Minzu University in Beijing where over 400 Tibetan stu­dents from the Tibetan Studies department.

VOT reports that 20 Tibetan stu­dents were arrested by secu­rity forces while they were in the street in Chabcha to voice their protest to a Chinese lan­guage only school curriculum.

The protests, which began October 19, con­tinue as we go to press.

Free Tibet has a day-​​by-​​day sum­mary of events, and ICT’s report pub­lished Friday also con­tains details.

Translation of the rel­e­vant Qinghai offi­cial doc­u­ment — “guid­ing sug­ges­tions” for edu­ca­tion pol­icy — trans­lated by the International Campaign for Tibet.

Tibetan blog­ger Woeser released, gets jour­nal­ism award

According to Tibetan blog­ger Woeser, the well-​​known Tibetan writer Tagyal (Shogdung), who was arrested in April, has been released on bail and returned home on October 14.

Woeser her­self is mak­ing head­lines, this month the International Women’s Media foun­da­tion will con­fer upon Tibetan writer Woeser the 2010 ‘Courage in Journalism award’ which rec­og­nizes the brav­ery of women jour­nal­ists around the world who risk polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion, phys­i­cal injury and death in their efforts to expose cor­rup­tion and cham­pion human rights. Full trans­la­tions of her accep­tance speech: From Students for a Free Tibet and from High Peaks, Pure Earth.

Chinese media are start­ing to run sto­ries about the approach­ing 60th Anniversary of what they are call­ing “the peace­ful lib­er­a­tion” of Chamdo.

Lhasa’s first lux­ury hotel

St. Regis Lhasa Resort is open­ing on Nov. 15, becom­ing the first lux­ury hotel to open in the Tibetan cap­i­tal.

China issues first provin­cial reg­u­la­tion on cli­mate change. According to Xinhua, some moun­tain ice caps and frozen soil atop the Qinghai-​​Tibet Plateau are melt­ing, trig­ger­ing floods, expand­ing deserts and degrad­ing the ecology.

The fifth civil air­port in what is known as the Tibet Autonomous Region will open early next month, in Shigatse.

Highland barley-​​brewed beer from Tibet sold to U.S. Beer brewed from high­land bar­ley grown in south­west China’s Tibet Autonomous Region has received a warm wel­come in the United States sin­ceits debut in the TAR.

U.S. Urges China To Hold Substantive Dialogue On Tibet. The com­mis­sion “con­veys to the Chinese gov­ern­ment the urgent impor­tance of refrain­ing from using legal mea­sures to infringe upon and repress Tibetan …

Tibet close to real­iz­ing 4-​​hour eco­nomic zone in Lhasa. China’s Tibet has paid close atten­tion to build­ing up a four-​​hour eco­nomic zone in recent years and indus­trial clus­ters fea­tur­ing plateau characteristics.