Dalai Lama met Bruni-Sarkozy

© REUTERS/PHILIPPE LAURENSON
Yesterday August 22, the French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy met with the Dalai Lama (as announced …). What they discussed and how the puplic response is reported in today’s news.
Le Monde (France):
Cet entretien aura sûrement une tonalité politique alors que le dalaï-lama a dénoncé jeudi la poursuite de la répression chinoise au Tibet, [...]

Free the Beijing 6

The Chinese Dictators show their true face:
BEIJING (AFP) — Beijing police said Thursday it had handed out 10-day detention terms to six foreigners believed by an overseas activist group to be pro-Tibet campaigners involved in Olympic protests this week.
SFT’s Statement on the Sentencing
These individuals were in Beijing to amplify Tibetan voices calling for freedom and [...]

Breaking news: China to Meet With Representative Of Dalai Lama

Breaking news:
Chinese officials will meet representatives of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism whom China blames for a wave of unrest, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday, citing official sources.
The move marks a change in tactics on the part of Beijing, which has stepped up its vilification of the Dalai Lama since [...]

Europe should maybe stop this hypocrisy…

Sabine Verhest writes in Belgian daily La Libre about the problems of Europeans when dealing with China: (via eurotopics)
“While the Tibetans continue demonstrating in Lhassa despite the repression, the Europeans have very courageously taken the step of treating China with kid gloves as much as possible. Meeting in Slovenia [on March 29th] under the presidency [...]

EU and China: The threat of a boycott

John Fox, a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations calls for a more efficient EU foreign policy that does not rule out any olympic boycott:

EU leaders need to make clear to the Chinese Government that they are prepared to boycott Olympic ceremonies and to consider a broader boycott of the games [...]

The debate in the European Parliament

MEPs debated the situation in Tibet with some MEPs calling for a possible boycott of at least the opening ceremony of the forthcoming Olympic Games to be held in China this summer while others said that a boycott would be futile. Many MEPs called for freedom for Tibet and underlined the human rights abuses in [...]

How to crank up the pressure on China?

A very handy European press round-up about the current debate on how to deal with China can be found here.
Are the Summer Olympics 2008 in Beijing at risk? The debate about how the world should act towards China in view of the events in Tibet continues. Who is in the best position to crank up [...]

China blocks internet news about Tibet

The Times writes about increased internet censorship in China following the events in Tibet:
China has closed down access to several of the world’s most popular websites in an apparent attempt to censor international coverage of the violence that is unfolding in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
YouTube, the video-sharing website which has become a home to [...]

Corporate Sponsors and the Olympics

It seems as if corporate sponsors are going to face a tough decision between supporting the Chinese regime and the Olympic Games or being critical and withdrawing their support!
This article shows the start of the debate:
China’s poor human rights record poses a special challenge for companies seeking to capitalise on a worldwide audience while maintaining [...]

NO for NOlympia in Beijing

If you are still asking yourself whether you should boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing this year, here are some reasons for a boycott:
english
>> The Economist: Lhasa under siege
>> TIME: Fearing the Worst
deutsch
>> Spiegel Online: Tibet-China-Eskalation
>> DIE ZEIT: Krise in Tibet
francais
>> Le Monde: Le dalaï-lama veut renouer le dialogue avec Pékin
In some articles the Dalai [...]