DHARAMSALA, India – A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers Wednesday told Radio Free Asia that China is a threat for engaging in transnational repression, after a meeting with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, in his home. Congressional delegation meets the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala (RFA Video) During the meeting the Dalai Lama explained to the delegation how he has spent the majority of his life as a refugee in India, continuing Tibetan traditions and supporting the exile government headquartered in Dharamsala, after fleeing Tibet in 1959. The delegation,…
Tag: Tibet
Tibetan activists protest Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Washington visit — in photos
Tibetans gathered near the Chinese embassy in Washington on Thursday to protest Chinese President Xi Jinping as he arrived on the South Lawn of the White House to meet with U.S. President Trump. (RFA Video) “He’s not welcome here,” Thondup Tsering, a former Tibetan parliamentarian for North and South America who was attending the protest, told Radio Free Asia. “He’s not welcome because of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The policies that [he] has put in Tibet, which are aimed to wipe out Tibetan culture and Tibetan identity.” Tsering traveled…
How the Nepal-Tibet disaster became the latest victim of China’s ‘Clean Internet’ campaign
Tsering Phuntsok watched news of the Nepal-Tibet flood unfold from thousands of miles away in southern India. The 46-year-old Tibetan in exile has missing family members on both sides of the border; those in Nepal are named in official government lists, but in Tibet he has received no information. “I have started praying for the lost ones now. I have to accept they will not return [because] … I’m not getting any information.” The flooding disaster is an example of the increasing use by Chinese authorities of “Clean Internet 2026”,…
China confirms 43 dead in mudslide, Tibetan resident says 26 dead in just one village
Read a version of this story in Tibetan As Chinese officials raised the official death toll from the Nepal-Tibet mudslide to 43 on Saturday, a Tibetan resident told RFA on Sunday that 26 people died in Risur village, Kyirong county, alone, where the Kyirong (Gyirong in Chinese) border post is located. Because entry into the immediate disaster zone was restricted, the Tibetan resident told RFA that he had to trek around the mountain for about three hours to search for relatives, but could not find them. “Many people have gone…
Rescuers in Nepal find two more people alive after flood disaster
Emergency responders rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations on Saturday, as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal. The Nepali military said a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried out of the tunnel. Rescue efforts have focused…
‘Everyone seems to have forgotten’: In Tibet, flood-hit families search for the missing and grapple with China’s silence
Fan Hong last heard from her husband on the morning of the Nepal-Tibet disaster. More than a week later, the 31-year-old is desperately searching for information about Lin Bo, who was working on a Chinese highway project in Nepal. Struggling to get information from authorities, Fan turned to social media for help. “My husband works on a project in Nepal, about 5 kilometres from the Gyirong border crossing. I want to know what the situation is, but I haven’t been able to reach him,” the 31-year-old from China’s Sichuan province…
Dozens of trapped hydropower tunnel workers in Nepal could still be alive, official says
There is a high chance that dozens of workers may be found alive after a week trapped in an underground chamber at Nepal’s Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant after deadly flash floods, a Nepal electricity authority official has said. “In Rasuwagadhi, we think 46 people are trapped in a room-like structure in the tunnel,” Amhsu Kiran Shahi, a board member of the Nepal electricity authority, told Reuters on Wednesday. “We are very confident that they must be alive after one week because … they have food and water over there in the…
Swept away: inside the 4 September Guardian Weekly
Over the last week, the world has watched with horror the scenes from the Tibet-Nepal border where a devastating torrent of mud, water and ice tore along the Bhotekoshi River, destroying entire communities and leaving more than 1,000 people dead and several thousand more missing. From the Nepali town of Devighat, our south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen describes a nightmarish scene of overflowing mortuaries and unidentifiable bodies, as shellshocked survivors of the flood slowly return to the ruins of their homes. The disaster happened after the collapse of a glacier…
Sources in Tibet and Nepal reveal stories of flood destruction, survival
As the death toll from last week’s glacial flooding disaster at the Tibet-Nepal border surpassed 1,000 on Tuesday, sources inside Tibet told Radio Free Asia that a group of 10 Tibetan travel guides are among the missing. AFP reported that more than 4,500 people were missing, but both the death toll and the number of missing could be higher, as exiled Tibetans and advocacy groups have accused China of underreporting casualty totals on the Tibetan side of the border. Chinese authorities have forbidden journalists from entering the disaster zone or…
Nepal-Tibet floods: death toll passes 1,000 as rescue efforts continue at hydropower tunnels – latest updates
From 1h ago Death toll from Nepal-China flood disaster exceeds 1,000, authorities say The death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China has passed 1,000 as of Tuesday morning, officials said, with authorities reportedly burying hundreds of unidentified victims after the flood disaster overwhelmed morgues. Nepal’s disaster agency said in an update on Tuesday that 987 deaths had been counted there, with 3,916 people missing, including 583 foreigners. Chinese authorities, in their latest update on Sunday, reported 16 deaths and 546 people still missing. Armed police officers stand…